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V 



PHILOSOPHER’S 


STONE 


Translated from the Danish by Arthur G. Chater 


ALFRED A. KNOPF 




COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INO. 


Published, April, 192k 

First and second printings before publication 



Original Title: De Vises Sten 


j> 


Set up, electrotyped, and printed by the Vail-Ballou Press, Inc., Binghamton, N. Y. 
Paper supplied by W. F. Etherington & Co., New York. 

Bound by H. Wolff Estate, New York. 


MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


©C1A793262 

MAY -7 !924 



. . Wherever the blind girl appeared among men and women, 
' l and young, their souls were illumined with the knowledge 
of Truth, Goodness and Beauty; wherever she came, in the artist's 
workshop, in the stately halls of the wealthy, or amid the hum 
of factory wheels, it was as though she brought a ray of sun¬ 
shine, as though the string gave out its music, the dower its scent, 
and the refreshing dewdrop fell upon the languishing leaf. 

But the Devil could have none of this; and, as he has the wit 
of more than ten thousand men, he knew what to do. He went 
to the swamp, took bubbles of its foul water, caused a sevenfold 
echo of the lying word to resound over it, to make it more power¬ 
ful; he compounded a powder of mercenary laudatory poems and 
lying funeral orations, as many as he could dnd, boiled them in 
tears shed by envy, strewed upon them the rouge scraped from 
the withered cheeks of an old maid, and formed therewith a girl 
with the shape and gestures of the bountiful blind maid, “the 
gentle angel of devotion ," as people called her; and so the Devil 
set things going. The world did not know which of the two was 
the right one, and how should the world know! 

“Be true to thyself and trust in God; 

His will be done. Amen!” 

sang the blind girl in full reliance. She gave to the winds of 
heaven the four green leaves from the Tree of the Sun, to bring 
a message to her brothers; and she was sure that this would be 
fulfilled, nay more, that the jewel would be found which out¬ 
shines all earthly glory: from the brow of humanity it would 
shine even to her Father's house. 

“To my Father's house!" she repeated. “Yes, here on earth 
is the home of the jewel, and more than the assurance of this do 
I bring; I feel its glow, it swells and swells in my closed hand. 
Every little grain of Truth, however fine, which the keen wind 
carried with it, I caught and kept; 1 diffused through it the per¬ 
fume of all the Beauty, of which there is so much in the world, 
even for the blind; I took the sound of human hearts beating in 
Goodness and laid it therein; grains of dust I bring, no more, and 


yet the dust of the long-sought jewel in rich abundance; my 
whole hand is full of it!” and she held it out to—her Father. 
She was at home; with the speed of thought she had come there, 
since she had never let go the invisible thread that held her to her 
Father's house. 

The Powers of Evil swept with the roar of a hurricane over the 
Tree of the Sun and forced their way through the open door into 
the secret chamber. 

“It will blow away!” cried her Father, seising the hand which 
she had opened. 

“No!” said she in firm security. “It cannot blow away. I 
feel the warmth of its radiance within my soul.” 

And the Father saw a shining dame, as the gleaming dust fell 
from her hand upon the white page of the book which told of 
the certainty of eternal life; in dazzling splendour there was writ¬ 
ten but a single word, the one word FAITH. . . . 

From The Philosopher's Stone — Hans Christian Andersen. 


Contents 


Book I 

I. Churchyard and Playground 3 

II. In the Hay 11 

III. Lillebror 16 

IV. A Shooting Star 19 

V. The Language of Heaven 24 

VI. Pastor Barnes 27 

VII. “The Open” 31 

VIII. The Sunshine of the Playground 34 

IX. Gone 39 

X. In the Elder-tree 42 

XI. The Cryptic Smile 48 

XII. The Crime 53 

XIII. Cursed Town 61 

XIV. Intuition 63 

XV. Tine 74 

XVI. Closed 79 

XVII. A Tailor’s Tragedy 84 

XVIII. The Night between Friday and Saturday 91 

XIX. Homeless 99 

XX. Disappointments 105 

XXI. The Toy no 

XXII. A Vision 113 


Contents 

BooklT 


XXIII. 

Nanna Bang 

HO 

XXIV. 

Mother and Daughter 

124 

XXV. 

Understanding 

135 

XXVI. 

Theosophists 

138 

XXVII. 

The Cappellano’s Precepts 

143 

XXVIII. 

Nanna Bang Thinks Deeply 

146 

XXIX. 

Ecstasy 

149 

XXX. 

Reflected Glory 

154 

XXXI. 

A “Psychical Investigator” 

159 

XXXII. 

Delirium 

164 

XXXIII. 

Divorce 

173 

XXXIV. 

Melancholy 

178 

XXXV. 

Rustic Idyll 

184 

XXXVI. 

Separation 

186 

XXXVII. 

The Black One 

193 

XXXVIII. 

The Numbers 

208 

XXXIX. 

The Professor Dines 

214 

XL. 

In Love 

224 

XLI. 

Under the Beech 

231 

XLII. 

The Councillor 

236 

XLIII. 

A Released Convict 

242 

XLIV. 

The Meeting 

253 

XLV. 

Mai 

255 

XLVI. 

A Singular Lady 

259 

XLVII. 

Miss Dale 

265 

XLVIII. 

In the Deer Park 

276 

XLIX. 

The Angels 

283 



Contents 


L. 

To America 

288 


Book III 


LI. 

Peace and Happiness 

295 

LII. 

“Platonic Love” 

3 °i 

LIII. 

Warning Visions 

308 

LIV. 

His Will Be Done 

310 

LV. 

Two Worlds 

316 

LVI. 

The Infanticides’ Hell 

321 

LVII. 

Perpetual Motion 

328 

LVIII. 

An Unfortunate Ascetic 

33 1 

LIX. 

“The Missing Wheel” 

336 

LX. 

Mad? 

340 

LXI. 

The Miracle 

347 

LXII. 

Maya 

356 

LXIII. 

The Crossways 

360 

LXIV. 

A Leisure Hour 

367 

LXV. 

Free 

372 


Book I 









I. Churchyard and Playground 

A ROAR hung over the playground, the shout of life from 
many young throats, while feet scurried hither and 
thither and arms waved in the air. 

A man was hanging idly over the churchyard wall; the sun 
shone on his tanned face, but half his body lay in the shadow of 
the old elder-tree. 

With a smile he turned from the deafening noise of the play¬ 
ground and stood with his back against the wall in a happy 
feeling of being outside it all, of not belonging anywhere, except 
where the sun happened to be shining. 

The red tiled roof of the church glowed, its white walls shone, 
its tower looked bigger than usual, the whole church seemed to 
rear its head proudly in the sunshine. 

But over on the other side, where a quarter of an hour ago he 
had stood watching a member of the parish council being lowered 
into the ground, things had a different look. There all was 
shadow, gloom and insecurity. The wall was fissured and leaned 
with the threat of a fall, which three heavy brick buttresses 
tried to prevent or at least to delay. 

He still had in his ears the note of mortality from the tolling of 
the bell, and it suggested the idea that the buttresses might give 
way and the church collapse with a muffled sigh over the grave of 
the parish councillor. 

But he was outside it all; it was no concern of his whether it 
stood or whether it gave way, whether they died or whether they 
played and shouted with a new-born life that knew no end. 

He was anonymous, a man who was in the midst of it all and 
had done with it all, without being in the least tired of anything. 

Life had washed him ashore in the parish of his birth, and there 
he had stayed, not like a wreck, but like a useful object that might 
be turned to anything, and was therefore used for nothing in 
particular. He had no profession, hardly a name—at any rate, it 
was known to few and used by none; everybody called him simply 
“the Professor,” though, as most of them were aware, he had 

3 


4 The Philosopher’s Stone 

never been one. He was forty-two, but lithe and active as a lad 
of twenty, equally fitted for bodily or mental work, and happy in 
an equal freedom from the compulsion of either. 

His eye measured the church tower, once the highest object in 
his world; since then he had seen things which soared more boldly, 
but a memory of warmth and cosiness hung about this old, sunny 
church tower. He had nothing to do inside the church door, pre¬ 
ferred rather to stay outside, but an ineradicable sympathy lay in 
his heart and infused kindness into the smile with which he 
regarded the tottering edifice in the churchyard—once the expres¬ 
sion of the spiritual life and celestial aspirations of the parish, now 
rather their monument. 

The spiritual life of the parish had left the church, had 
followed the crooked paths of politics to Parliament, had found 
diversion in dissenting chapels, yawned a little over art, and bared 
its credulous head before science. Its celestial aspiration was 
buried with the dead in the churchyard. Religion had become a 
mole, and was only noticed when from time to time a new “cast” 
appeared among the old mounds in the churchyard. The church 
held possession of the dead bodies, the living had their hearts 
full of “Progress.” 

Of course they went to church, but for amusement, not for wor¬ 
ship. The parson was a man of gifts, a speaker who could hold 
the attention. But when they went home it was with the same 
emotions as they would have carried away from a theatrical per¬ 
formance or an impressive lecture. Their imagination was 
stirred, but no religious life lived in them. 

Had they grown out of their religion? Could the collapse of 
the church be delayed only, not prevented? Was the religious 
feeling about to become homeless, perhaps vanish altogether? 
Were the small beer of the Grundtvigians and the acrid lees of the 
Evangelicals signs that the cask was almost empty ? 

He turned again to the playground, where the coming parish¬ 
ioners tumbled about in the sport of the present, careless of past 
and future, Church and Parliament, school and university. 

What would the old church come to mean to them, from the day 
it saw them confirmed till it received them into its earth ? 

If the religious feeling was in process of disappearing, what 
was to happen to the generation which could neither be said to 
possess it nor to be rid of it? What dawning destinies were 
striving to announce themselves in the hubbub before him? 


Churchyard and Playground 5 

His eye ranged over the playground and left it to chance which 
details might first emerge from the mass. 

Sharp Martine, with her intelligent, alert, not too deep eyes, 
came towards the road arm in arm with pretty, gentle Tine, whose 
eyelids with their long, black lashes half veiled the dream she was 
revealing to the eager ears of Martine. Martine was awake to 
everything, quick to take in, arrange and place even the things she 
did not understand. She was fond of Tine—that was easy to see 
—just because she was so indescribably different from the rest 
without being the least bit odd. Tine excited Martine’s imagi¬ 
nation. The Professor had a peculiar faculty of looking at and 
seeing into people without exactly using thought, simply looking at 
and into them, till he felt their nature in himself. He might well 
have set up as a fortune-teller and predicted things about the 
futures of the two girls which would probably have come true. 

A private carriage came driving past. Its silver-mounted har¬ 
ness jingled, its wheels on their rubber tires rolled softly as on 
air; in it sat ladies and gentlemen, neat and smart, talking and 
smiling to each other with nothing else to do. It was like a 
holiday driving past. 

Tine stopped still, her arm slipped from Martine’s, her eyes 
with their long, black lashes opened wider and wider and followed 
the carriage as though bound to it by longing. To Martine a 
carriage was a carriage; she watched Tine with curiosity, while her 
thoughts played in her eyes like fish rising in the water. 

There was a sound of scraping on the churchyard wall. It 
was Holger, the widow’s son, leaning his back against it. 

The Professor forgot the two girls and began to watch him, 
thinking: 

“A queer fellow that; he always catches one’s attention and 
holds it fast, goodness knows why. There is something incom¬ 
mensurable about him, something as safe as a house and some¬ 
thing profoundly disquieting; he is both too big and too little, too 
precocious and too childishly naive. What does he want with that 
mighty forehead, when blessed stupidity dwells massively in his 
cheeks, like a cow in a meadow chewing the cud? How reconcile 
that sensitive mouth with the barbaric force of the chin and the 
narrow fanatical lips ? His eyes are clear and yet like bog-water 
when you look into them, you don’t expect any bottom, the very 
ground-water is in them, as though there were no division between 
the subconscious and the conscious. What sun can that be that is 


6 The Philosopher’s Stone 

now lighting them up and turning them blue?” The boy's head 
hung aslant in an incredible degree of rustic placidity. His 
mouth was as soft as a child’s that has not yet got its teeth, but 
it also showed the grown-up tenderness of a mother’s and the deep 
worship of a youth’s. A smile of devotion lighted up his whole 
face, the smile that may be seen on peasants’ faces when they dis¬ 
cover that the land which is rich and fertile and well cultivated is 
at the same time beautiful, and with heartfelt emotion they give 
vent to their feeling for the kalon kai agathon in the hushed 
exclamation: “It’s pretty!” The word “pretty” then sums up 
for them all the goodness and joy of life. 

The Professor’s eyes followed Holger’s and came upon the 
joiner’s little daughter Hansine with her dimples, forget-me-not 
eyes and plait of fair hair, the joiner’s little Hansine who always 
looked as if to-day were Sunday. She was standing in a group of 
girls, and her dimples were full of sunshine, overflowing with 
sunshine, which threw the Sunday gleam on the faces of the others. 
The Professor thought: “So long as there are children on earth 
like little Hansine, people will believe there are angels in heaven.” 
But how is it that that hulking boy over by the wall is the only 
one of them who feels it to the full and knows he is looking at a 
revelation ?” 

He turned again towards Holger to look at him and try to see 
into him, but at that moment the boy’s great frame gave a start. 

What caused it was a scream from the middle of the play¬ 
ground, where little Hans Olsen had been playing, with a round 
and friendly posterior turned to the churchyard. He had the 
most innocent-looking calves in the world, a pair of little stumps; 
his white hair amused itself by curling about his temples. 

He had just finished a great game: he was the owner of a field, 
which he ploughed, sowed and reaped. He “bought” another and 
then another; at last he had a whole farm and farmed it diligently. 
He got up on his pins and looked at what he had done and saw 
that it was good. He was happy; he heard the shouts of the 
others and knew that they were happy too. As he stood wrapt 
in his own and the others’ happiness, he was too tempting an 
object for one of the big boys of the top class, who gave the 
friendly posterior a kick, so that the whole farmer flew across 
his well-tilled land and came to earth far from the things which 
were good, with his nose against a stone. 

Huge as an elephant for whom all made way, the widow’s son 


Churchyard and Playground 7 

Holger crossed the playground, lifted the little man up, carried 
him to the pond and bathed his face, took his handkerchief, wiped 
away the blood and sand, and carried him to the churchyard wall, 
so that he might sit up against it and sun himself well. 

But as he was handing him the handkerchief he saw that it 
was covered with blood. He stood still, staring into it. 

The Professor watched him attentively. He had a feeling that 
Holger was just now passing from one world into another. His 
face had expressed the tenderness and concern of a father or a 
big brother; now this slowly gave place to a look of blank wonder. 
One of the big boys had struck one of the little ones. Holger’s 
whole being expressed nothing at all but a colossal questioning 
stupidity. He didn’t understand anything, but a feeling was 
working its way up through him from somewhere deep down. 
His eyes got heavy and turbid, anything might be expected; his 
narrow lips compressed into a thin line, the turbid look vanished 
from his eyes, but with it all sign of humanity: they were like the 
eyes of a wild beast. 

The handkerchief fell to the ground beside Hans Olsen. 
Holger turned and walked slowly with bent head and searching 
glance into the crowd. He had not seen who gave the kick, but 
he was not left long in doubt, for a space was cleared around the 
culprit; the other boys, knowing what Holger was like when his 
eyes stiffened, made way. 

The one who had done it stood stiff with fright; he knew he 
might be killed or maimed, Holger knew no bounds when the 
berserk rage came over him, and the worst thing one could do 
was to resist. 

Holger looked him in the eyes for an evil second, then planted 
his clenched fist in his face. The boy dropped without a sound. 
Holger threw himself upon him, lifted him up, and flung him to 
the ground. The others thought they could hear his teeth clat¬ 
tering as his neck struck the earth. The boy lay like a corpse. 
But nobody dared to interfere. The Professor vaulted over the 
churchyard wall, Holger had already lifted the boy again, when 
he heard a “No” and felt a warm breath upon his face. 

It was little Hansine, who had run up and stood looking at him. 

“No more,” she said; “you mustn’t give him any more.” 

Holger stared into the blue forget-me-not eyes, while he care¬ 
fully deposited the boy on the ground. 

Then he remained on his knees looking into her eyes. 


8 The Philosopher’s Stone 

The Professor walked off slowly in the direction of the school. 

Holger was still on his knees looking at Hansine. He did 
nothing but look. He had not got so far as thinking, there was 
no room for more than sight. 

“Help him/’ she said, and went away. 

Then Holger recovered his reason. 

He lifted the boy, carried him carefully up to the churchyard 
wall, and put him by the side of Hans Olsen. 

After that he walked quickly across the playground into the 
school. 

When the Professor looked through the window he saw Holger 
lying with his head on the table crying. His weeping was passing 
into the unconscious stage, his broad shoulders shook rhythmically, 
like the beats of a pulse. 

The Professor went home without another look at the play¬ 
ground, but Annine Clausen, who came trotting past chatting to 
herself, stopped and asked what was the matter, and one of the 
boys answered: 

“It’s Holger Enke* again; he’s thrashed one of the big boys 
for striking one of the little ones.” 

“Hum, hum,” said Annine, “he can’t bear anybody being bullied, 
it makes him wild with sheer kindness. What a funny thing 
life is, to be sure.” 

She trotted on, pondering this, and felt she would like a cup of 
coffee with Kirsten Per Smeds.f 

But as she passed the hedge which separated the parish clerk’s 
garden from the road, she was stopped by a pair of eyes that 
looked far beyond her. She said “Good day,” got no answer, 
and trotted on, again chattering to herself. 

“There he is again right inside the hedge, the clerk’s little son, 
looking down the road as if he was expecting something a long way 
off—whatever can a boy like that be looking for?—That’s just 
what I said to his mother, when he lay in his cradle and opened 
his eyes and looked right past us all as if he wanted to find some¬ 
thing we couldn’t see: ‘Whatever can the boy be looking for.?’ 
said I. Oh, well, how time flies! He’ll soon be going to school 
like my own Niels Peter that I was ashamed of having, because 
I wasn’t married, and now I’m glad I’ve got him. Oh, well, I 
went to school there myself with little Jens’s grandfather, who’s 

* I.e., “Holger the widow’s son.”—Tr. 
t I.e., “Kirsten the wife of Peter the smith.”—Tr. 


Churchyard and Playground 9 

now lying in the churchyard. What a funny thing life is, to be 
sure. I wonder whether Kirsten’s got coffee ready?” 

Kirsten had, and Annine ran on while she was drinking it. 

I d like to know what the clerk’s little boy is always looking 
for in the hedge there.—‘You don’t see any further than the end 
of your nose,’ his grandfather used always to say to us in school, 
but we saw further than him for all that, for now he’s lying in 
the churchyard, and now there’s his little grandson there looking 
past us grown-ups—bless me, what a funny thing life is, to be 
sure, and how crisp you’ve made this soda cake. Fancy now, the 
widow’s Holger’s been and half killed another boy out of sheer 
kindness! He doesn’t know when to stop when his heart runs 
away with him.” 

“He takes after his dead father,” said Kirsten, who had so 
much to say about the widow’s late husband that Annine had to 
run home at a jog-trot to pass it on. 

The parish clerk’s little Jens was still standing in the hedge and 
she had just time to call out to him: 

“What is it you’re waiting for?” 

She was gone before the little fellow woke up and could answer 
her. 

But the question stuck, and while he blankly followed Annine 
with his eyes, it burrowed deep below his thoughts, till it reached 
the place where he kept the things he had forgotten. As Annine 
disappeared round a corner the question bobbed up from the 
depths like a waterfowl, with the answer in its beak, and held 
it out to him in the sunshine. 

Yes, of course, that was it, and what a long time it was ago. He 
had stood here every day looking out, until he had forgotten what 
he was looking for and only came here because there was some¬ 
thing he longed for, and stood here because it was a lovely place 
to stand. 

But then she might easily have gone past, many times perhaps, 
and he simply had not known it was she. 

Well, it must be one of those he knew, and now that he re¬ 
membered who it was he longed to see, he would try his best to 
know her again. 

But how long ago was it? Two years or three years? He 
was much smaller then; for now he was allowed to walk by him¬ 
self in the long, dark woodland paths of “Fredeskov,” where his 
mother led him by the hand that day. He could plainly see the 


10 


The Philosopher’s Stone 

place where it happened. His mother stopped to talk to a lady; 
by the side of the lady stood a little girl who looked like a pic¬ 
ture; she was alive, of course, but just as pretty as a picture. 
She had a pink frock on. And a bag of sweets in her hand. 
He stood looking into her eyes, and they were the sort of eyes 
that you could go on looking into without getting tired of it, 
even if Mother and the lady talked for a long time. The little girl 
gave him her sweets. He took them and didn’t say thanks, though 
he meant to; but he didn’t get so far, because he was still busy 
looking at her, and suddenly his mother and the lady said good¬ 
bye to one another. 

They were good sweets, even better than sweets generally are, 
the sort of sweets there must be in fairy-tales. He would like to 
see her again and say thanks and ask where those sweets came 
from. 

And so it had occurred to him that she must surely pass the 
school one day, and then he would be standing in the hedge and 
would ask her and say thanks, and perhaps she would play with 
him. 

But she had never come, at any rate not before he had for¬ 
gotten” that it was she he was looking for. But now he re¬ 
membered, and now he would know her right enough. Sud¬ 
denly he struck his fist very decidedly against a branch of the 
hazel: “Why, I know her already! It’s one of those I know, 
I’m sure I’ve seen her since without knowing it. But which of 
the ones I have seen is it?” 

It might be the joiner’s little daughter Hansine. He would 
have liked it to be Hansine; all the same he didn’t really believe 
it was she. 

But if she came past one day while he stood there, he was 
sure he would know her, even if she hadn’t a pink frock and 
had grown bigger. 

He bent some slender branches of hazel together to make a 
chair. It was a good chair; he sat in it and was lost in thought, 
gazing far down the road. 

He was still sitting there when the children poured out of 
school, where nothing of importance had happened that after¬ 
noon except that little Hans Olsen and still smaller Ellen Nielsen 
looked up at each other from their copy-books at the same 
moment, broke into a smile, and knew then that they were good 
friends, even though they might never go so far as to say it to 
each other, since he was a boy and she was a girl. 


II. In the Hay 

1 AASTOR BARNES stood before his glass shaving. 
yj < His eight-year-old son, Christian, sat in a corner watch- 
I ing him and had pangs of conscience because it struck 
him that his father was ugly. It was not right of him, for 
everybody said Pastor Barnes was a handsome man. The boy 
screwed up his eyes and had a good look. 

The pastor felt that he was being observed; he turned and 
said in an irritated voice: “What are you looking at ?” Christian 

got up and stole out. 

There it was again. His father didn’t like people to look at 
him without his knowing it. But Christian was possessed by a 
painful craving to steal upon him; he lay in wait for him, spied 
him out, was remorseful about it but could not leave it off. 
He had a nasty feeling that his father was not fully dressed when 
he was alone. 

Pastor Barnes stood doubtful a moment, looked at himself in 
the glass, and saw a face comic with shaving-soap and irresolution. 
He washed the soap off, looked at himself again, and gave a start, 
refusing to recognize the face as his own. It was not like him, 
it was insignificant. 

He pulled himself up, like a gymnast looking for his practice 
apparatus. A train of memories passed through his mind: he 
reviewed them with dissatisfaction, but dwelt with relief on 
yesterday's funeral. A bright, firm look came into his face. 
If his son had looked in at the window he would have seen a 
scrupulously dressed and remarkable man. 

For remarkable Pastor Barnes was—on occasion; seldom 
privately. But in the presence of a crowd a situation might take 
hold of him and carry him along, with it. He was good at 
confirmations, excellent at weddings, but incomparable at funer¬ 
als. He was the best grave-side orator in the diocese, and old 
Niels Madsen on his death-bed expressed a thought which was 
dormant in many besides himself, when, in reply to the clergy¬ 
man’s question whether he had now thrown all thoughts of 

ii 


12 


The Philosopher’s Stone 

this world overboard, he said: “All except one, Pastor Barnes, 
that I might hear the words you are going to say over my coffin.” 

The pastor’s own son was the only one who did not share the 
general admiration, and yet he had been lucky in the first 
funeral he attended. For that was when they lowered his 
aunt into the ground. She had lived at the parsonage from his 
earliest years, and throughout his childhood her appearance 
indoors or out had been like a cloud before the sun on a spring 
day. At last Providence thought it had gone on long enough 
and brought her days to an end. Christian was big enough to 
go to the funeral, his father said. It was a proud feeling: 
besides being big he was alive. For once he could triumph over 
his aunt. She was well looked after; the coffin-lid was screwed 
down, he had seen it done himself. She couldn’t get up and snap 
out: “He’s too young to be there.” 

He was interested in hearing what his father would say over 
her grave. But he soon lost the thread of it in astonishment at 
his father’s voice, which was different, rather bigger and broader 
than usual, something like himself when he had a new suit of 
clothes on. When he had finished being astonished he got 
sleepy, but was saved from dropping off by catching sight of a 
woman who must have been ill, as she was crying. But there 
was another, and yet another, and several men too. He amused 
himself by counting how many were crying, and wondering what 
was the reason. It was no use telling him they were sorry they 
would never see Aunt again. Suddenly it dawned on him that 
it was his father who made them cry, and then he gave him his 
undivided attention. It ended in a deep sigh of relief; there 
was no doubt about it, he had found the right solution. His 
father was not crying himself, for of course he knew Aunt pretty 
well, but he stood there and amused himself by making people 
cry, just like the maids in the kitchen, who delighted in frighten¬ 
ing him with ghost stories they didn’t believe in themselves. 

The next funeral oration he heard was yesterday’s, which his 
father was now looking back on with pleasure. He had made up 
his mind to listen very carefully, but forgot to, because it seemed 
to him that his father suddenly grew bigger as he came up to 
the coffin. It looked as if he stepped up on to the corpse so as 
to be seen better. When once the boy had got that idea into his 
head he could not get rid of it again. His father was treading 


In the Hay 13 

on the corpse he was talking about. Now and then he came to a 
full stop and looked as he did at his writing-table when he couldn’t 
get the sermon to go properly. Every time that happened he 
dropped his eyes to the coffin a moment, then threw his head back 
and raised his voice, and a few more started to cry. Christian 
didn’t bother to count them, he was more interested in seeing how 
many times his father had to turn his eyes to the coffin, like a 
boy looking down into his book. 

While thus engaged he was disturbed by his imagination. 
It struck him suddenly that his father was like a big black bird 
that pecked at something, stretched its neck, and swallowed it. 
The thing the bird was pecking at was a corpse, and as bad luck 
would have it, Christian had just been reading about big birds 
that lived on carrion. He felt sick and thought he could smell 
the corpse through the coffin. Never did an Amen sound so 
comforting as that which proceeded from the mouth of Pastor 
Barnes just as his son raised a handkerchief to his own to 
retch into. 

The boy now went through the garden with hanging head, 
afraid of having broken the commandment, “Thou shalt honour 
thy father and thy mother.” He jumped over the fence into 
the field, where the hay was in cocks, crawled up one of them, 
lay on his back, and sniffed in the scent. 

Heaven was high up and very blue. He looked up at it. Could 
Aunt really be there? It would interest him to know whether 
she had gone to hell. The thought made him grin, but he checked 
himself. “I hope I am not wicked,” he said, horrified. 

He looked inquiringly at the blue for a long time, until he 
could feel that he was good. 

It was nice to know that, so he kept on gazing up to heaven. 
When he had lain for a while the haycock began to move. It 
didn’t swing to and fro; it was the earth itself that was carrying 
it round. Because of course the earth hangs in space and moves. 
The geography book says so. Now he could see it was true. He 
found that out by gazing up to heaven. All good gifts and all 
wisdom come from there. The Bible says so. 

The longer he gazed up into the blue, the bluer it got; at last he 
thought his eyes too were blue. Just then they felt tired, he 
shut them and saw that he was blue inside. The blue inside him 
was the same as the blue in heaven, and now he would try to 


14 The Philosopher’s Stone 

make himself one with it, so that he would be blue and good right 
through—and then he began to soar; the haycock soared with him, 
it too had turned blue, the colour was catching. 

Higher and higher, faster and faster he went up on his hay¬ 
cock—and what he had been told was quite true, that heaven 
was open infinitely—you could soar right in—and it was blue 
and blessed on every side—so that was what it meant to be blessed 
—but where were the others?—and how was it?—for the blessed 
are dead—but he was blessed, and he couldn’t be dead! 

Terror seized him, he turned giddy and fell deep, deep down, 
was afraid of hurting himself—but if he could fall he was any¬ 
how not dead—and perhaps the haycock would break his fall 
now for it—and he lay on the ground at the foot of the hay¬ 
cock, sore behind but blessed at heart. 

While he was still rubbing himself he suddenly saw before him 
the page in the Bible story which tells about Stephen. “I see the 
heavens opened.” 

“Yes,” he said. “That was what I saw. I saw heaven open. 
I was not asleep, because I was thinking all the time about what 
was happening. And sleeping won’t make you as I am still, 
so blue, I mean, so happy and good. I’m sure I can never be 
wicked again.” 

This was a thing a good boy ought to tell his mother, for she 
would be glad to hear it. Christian Barnes went home and said 
to his mother that he had seen into heaven. 

“Don’t talk such nonsense,” said she. It was close on dinner¬ 
time and the joint might get burnt. 

“Well, but Stephen,” he began, “he did too-” 

“Don’t let your father hear any of that,” she said. “Go in now 
and wash your hands, it’s dinner-time.” 

Was not the thing he had experienced far more important than 
a joint of beef? And she would not so much as ask what he 
meant when he said he had seen into heaven. 

But he was so good that he could not be angry; he honoured 
his father and his mother, obeyed and washed his hands, sat 
down to the table and looked out through the window, up to the 
blue heavens, promised to honour his father and his mother all 
his life, and got a nudge from his mother and a severe look from 
his father, who started over again with: “For what we are about 
to receive.” His tone was harsh and gloomy, because his son 
had not clasped his hands; it recalled the funeral oration of the 


In the Hay 15 

day before. Christian bent over his plate, looking at the helping 
of beef his mother had given him, and it occurred to him that the 
ox was dead. It was a corpse he had to eat. That was impos¬ 
sible. He asked to be excused.—Why?—Well, why?—After that 
about the heavens’ being opened, he would be careful not to speak 
the truth. “It is so fat,” he said. 

“Rubbish,” admonished Pastor Barnes. “No daintiness! If 
you don’t like the fat, eat it quickly. Look at me, I don’t like fat 
either.” 

Pastor Barnes bent down over his plate, took a piece of fat, 
put it in his mouth, threw his head back, as he had done in the 
funeral oration, and swallowed it. 

Then Christian in turn bent over his plate and was sick over 
the beef. 

It cost him a thrashing, and he ran out into the garden and 
cried. 

Soon after Pastor Barnes came out, feeling sorry he had 
thrashed the boy if he was really ill. 

“Are you ill?” he asked. “Is it your stomach, or what is it?” 

Meanwhile, feeling foolish at having forgotten himself im¬ 
mediately after saying grace, and uncertain whether the boy was 
really ill or only shamming, he had a look of empty professional 
sympathy, and his voice was thick, as though the fat still stuck 
in his throat. 

Christian looked up at his father and was sick once more. 

Then he was put to bed. “He’s feverish,” said his mother. 
“I could tell that by the way he was talking before he came in to 
dinner.” 

They took his temperature, but it was quite normal, and they 
looked at each other with a puzzled expression on their wise, 
grown-up faces. 


III. Lillebror 


K RISTEN the sexton was working in the parish clerk's 
garden. The clerk’s little boy sat in the hedge playing 
with the lid of Kristen’s new pipe. 

He was playing with the whole universe and God too, turning 
the lid towards the shade, so that the green hazel-bushes and the 
paths and lawns of the garden were reflected in it—that was the 
earth; he turned the lid upward, so that it sparkled with blue—■ 
that was heaven; he turned it straight against the sun, and it 
was all light and heat—that was God coming into heaven. In 
heaven you were always near God, but when he came there you 
could see him and nothing else. That was why God sometimes 
went out of heaven and into his own place, so that you could see 
the blue glory of heaven and be mirrored in it. God never came 
on the shady earth, but it was pretty all the same, because God was 
shining behind heaven. Jens learned a lot from that pipe-lid. 
The only thing he missed was hell. But then the black, stinking 
under-side of the lid, where you saw no sign of God, would do 
for that. 

“Kristen,” he said, “you’ve got heaven and earth and God and 
hell in your pipe-lid.” 

“Bless my soul!” said Kristen. “Then they’ve sold it to me 
far too cheap—here’s your father coming.” 

The clerk looked uneasily at his son, blinked his eyes nervously, 
as if he didn’t know what to do with them, and said at last: 

“Go over to the parsonage and ask if you may play with Chris¬ 
tian till we send for you.” 

“Yes, it’s near now, isn’t it?” asked the sexton. 

The clerk looked at Kristen as though he would seek help 
wherever he could find it. Jens had never seen his father so 
much at a loss; he looked as if his trousers had suddenly grown 
far too big for him. 

“Go now, little Jens,” he said. 

Jens trotted off; it was clear that they wanted him out of the 

16 


Lillebror 17 

way. But he could see it was no use asking why. That made 
him ponder over it all the more. 

But when he got to the parsonage, he forgot it over a globe 
which the pastor showed him, telling him it was the earth. It 
was round, and yet the people who lived on the under-side didn’t 
fall off, nor did they walk with their feet in the air. 

That was science, said the pastor. 

Jens understood the pipe-lid better. 

“Do you believe it’s true,” he asked Christian, when they were 
alone in the yard, “that about science?” 

“Grown-ups always tell lies,” declared Christian. 

“Even when they are teaching us something ?” 

“There’s always some lie in what they tell us, they think we 
shouldn’t understand without.” 

“Don’t you believe in,grown-ups at all?” 

Christian shook his head. 

Jens felt cold inside, he had a feeling that they were on the 
black under-side of the pipe-lid. 

“Don’t you believe in God either?” he asked. 

“Yes, of course I do,” said Christian. He fixed his sharp 
eyes on Jens and said hesitatingly: 

“Do you believe we can see into heaven?” 

Jens could tell that a good deal depended on the answer, so 
he said: 

“I believe we might be able to.” 

Christian held out his hand to him. 

“I have,” he said. 

Jens gave him his. 

“Then we can,” he said. 

That made them friends. 

When the girl came to fetch Jens, he remembered that there 
was some secret in the wind and made for home at a run. He 
came upon his father in the doorway and stopped, staring at him 
in amazement. He was quite changed. No question now of his 
trousers being too big for him. It was clear there was nothing to 
be afraid of with such a father. He was like the picture in the 
illustrated Bible, where it said underneath: “In the beginning 
God created the heaven and the earth.” 

The clerk threw out his hand and raised his voice: 

“You’ve got a little brother!” 

It was evidently a present, and Jens hurried in to see it. 


18 The Philosopher’s Stone 

But he couldn’t get in, for his father stood in the way and his 
father was so big and broad. 

“Aren’t you glad ?” he asked. 

Jens was disappointed, that was what he was. He could see 
that his mother was ill, and that there was an ugly red face lying 
beside her and squalling. That was nothing to be glad about. 
But his father stood there looking important, just as he did when 
he told him about the invention of the art of printing: “Can you 
see now what a good thing it is that we have invented the art of 
printing?”—and it turned out to be somebody else who had in¬ 
vented it. And now he had got a little brother! No, it was his 
parents who had got him, that was clear enough. 

But for the next few days both girls and men greeted him 
with: “Well, so you’ve got a little brother! Are you glad?” 

Christian is right, thought Jens; grown-ups always tell lies, 
even when what they say is true. 

But Dorte the basket-woman hit the right nail on the head 
when she gave him a doughnut and said: “So now your parents 
have got another besides you.” 

From that day forth he believed every word that proceeded out 
of the mouth of Dorte the basket-woman. 


IV. A Shooting Star 

** T OW you have got a little brother, so you had better 
begin going to school,” said the clerk, and so Jens 
1 went to school. 

He sat there day after day all through a summer when the 
weather was always so fine that it lived in his memory as the 
one real summer above all others. 

He loved the writing-lessons when big and small pupils were all 
together. He didn’t get much done in them, but sat watching 
the others from his place on the bottom form. 

There was the pastor’s son Christian, who spelt his name with 
a C, sat first among the small boys, and, according to the clerk, 
was able to think for himself. There was Annine Clausen’s 
Niels Peter, who either knew nothing at all or had the whole 
lesson by heart; there was Holger Enke, who was so fearfully 
strong and who declared that he always knew his lesson “inside 
himself,” but could never get it out, or at any rate only in bits 
which were all jumbled up together. And then there was Kris¬ 
tian Mogensen with a K, who always had flies crawling on his 
back, no doubt because he was such a nice boy that even the 
flies had found it out. He had gentle eyes, and his hushed voice 
always made Jens think he was going to tell him something good. 
Those were the boys that interested him most. Oh, and then his 
neighbour on the form, little Hans Olsen, who got teased about 
being sweethearts with Ellen Nielsen, which made Han’s cheeks 
go red, but certainly gave him a happy feeling inside. 

On the girls’ side the two top places belonged to Tine, who was 
sb pretty and so tidy, everybody said, and the joiner’s daughter 
Hansine, who to Jens’s mind was like the patch of sunlight on 
the floor by the window. Her eyes looked like two forget-me- 
nots with the sun on them, and on each cheek she had a dimple 
which had the power of making Jens happy if they appeared when 
she said anything to him. ... 

Just as the dimples slowly disappeared from Hansine’s face 
when she became serious, so did the sun vanish imperceptibly 

i9 


20 


The Philosopher’s Stone 

until Jens had to wear mittens and greatcoat. One cold, dark 
winter afternoon the school was given a half-holiday because a 
well-known missionary had come to hold a meeting in the mission 
room. The mothers wanted their children to be there, for, as 
they said, “then they will be able to say they have heard him when 
#iey are grown up.” 

The clerk reluctantly gave his consent; as far as Jens could 
understand, his father did not particularly wish to recognize the fa¬ 
mous missionary. “He has never been to college,” he said, looking 
as if he reproached the preacher with having had no part in the in¬ 
vention of the art of printing, and to Pastor Barnes he repeated 
with a smile like that of the head boy in the top class when he 
was heard his lesson: “Of course what he says may be very 
well, but the trouble is, one can tell he has never been to college.” 
Pastor Barnes smiled, the same kind of smile as the teacher’s when 
the head boy had answered correctly. He said nothing, but seemed 
to have a good opinion of the clerk. 

The missionary’s famous name filled the hall; people from the 
parish and people from the market town sat squeezed together 
into a single compact mass, which gradually became a passive in¬ 
strument for the missionary’s thoughts. 

He was a tall man of ponderous build, a giant in body, but 
even more powerful in the spirit. He had a lively imagination, 
and when warmed through with his intense feeling it produced 
pictures of heaven and hell which gave his hearers a sense of 
personal experience. Their faces shone with desire of the glory of 
the New Jerusalem; he worked them up into an ecstasy which, so 
long as the intoxication lasted, might have made them martyrs 
for the joy of their faith. But when he suddenly cried in a loud 
voice: “Yet—there is also another place,” and filled the air with 
thunder and lightning, with sulphurous flames and the torments 
of the damned, their faces reflected all the sufferings of the lost 
together with a sweating deadly fear. 

Only the clerk and the pastor and the Professor seemed to be 
free from the general self-surrender. The pastor and the clerk 
looked displeased, and little Jens Dahl remembered that of course 
the missionary had not been to college. But the Professor had, 
and he passed his eye attentively from one to another, till it rested 
on a little girl whose terrified soul was forced into her eyes. Jens 
knew her well; it was little Helen Stromstad from the town, the 
little girl that people never mentioned without saying that she was 


A Shooting Star 21 

so sweet and well brought up, whereupon they invariably added: 
‘'Yes, I must admit that about her mother—she has brought up 

her child as she ought—but otherwise I must say-” What 

it was they must say was never heard when children were present. 

Little Helen was terrified at all the things that might happen 
to a person after death and anxious because the grown-ups wer^ 
crying. She clung to her mother, a buxom beauty, who tried to 
smile at the little one and threw a shy glance at a lottery collector 
from the town who sat a little way off. He was sweating under 
the thin hair of his crown and plucked nervously at his drooping 
moustache, looking as if he wanted to say: “What made us come 
here? Haven’t we troubles enough already?” 

Little Helen grew paler and paler, and Jens determined to steal 
up to her and whisper: “You mustn’t mind what he says, he 
hasn’t been to college,” but he sat tight between the hips of the 
bailiff’s wife and Kirsten Per Smeds, and they were fat; he 
couldn’t get out. Then he fell into a doze and only woke up when 
they were all outside and the fresh air and the stillness, which was 
made denser by the soft falling of the big white snowflakes, had 
such an overwhelming effect after the excitement of the close 
mission room that nobody had the power to say a word or make 
up his mind to go. 

Suddenly little Helen’s thin, clear voice cut through the silence: 

“Mother, what is snow?” 

The missionary came up with an explanation, but the Professor, 
who was standing by the side of the little girl, cut him short by 
bending down to her and saying: 

“It’s the cotton-wool falling out of God’s ears, my little friend.” 

She looked at him in surprise and asked: 

“Why does he have all that cotton-wool in his ears?” 

“So that he may not hear how hideously men misuse his name,” 
said the Professor. 

The effect of this explanation was instantaneous on all those 
who had completely lost their self-control during the description 
of the torments of hell. Both women and men laughed as loudly 
as they had sobbed in the hall. 

The missionary, who thought he saw all his work spoilt and 
who was still full of his ecstatic exaltation, stepped up to the 
Professor and shouted: 

“Take care that God does not hear your blasphemy. For God 
is a mighty God and a jealous God. God can paralyse the strength 


22 


The Philosopher’s Stone 

of your arm! God can smite you to the ground before my feet 
this very moment! God can send your soul to everlasting, eternal, 
never-ending torment! God can make your life one perpetual, 
never-ceasing cry of pain!” 

He recovered his power over the listening crowd, but the Pro¬ 
fessor said quietly to the little girl, as he pointed up into the air: 

“Do you see, now it has left off snowing. So now you know 
that God has a use for his cotton-wool.” 

The missionary saw the smile that gathered on the lips of the 
men. A torrent of fire raced through him, and as his tongue was 
paralysed with rage the violence went into his limbs; he raised 
his arm and his huge clenched fist was launched at the Profes¬ 
sor’s face. 

What happened then was so rapid that no one managed to follow 
it all. Some just caught sight of the Professor’s left hand as it 
flew into the air and seized the missionary’s right arm; others 
saw him dart forward “like a flash of lightning” and grasp his 
left. Everyone had time to see him stand with both hands firmly 
clutching his opponent’s wrists and give his arms a short, sharp 
twist which brought a spasm of pain into the broad face. 

The Professor looked into the missionary’s eyes with a smile 
and said, while at every “blessed” he gave his arms a dexterous 
little twist: 

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. 

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. 

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children 
of God.” 

He closed one eye and braced his muscles as he concluded: 

“Blessed are ye when men shall persecute you.” 

A final hard twist sent the missionary to ground with an unholy 
roar of pain, and the Professor put his hands in his pockets and 
walked home. 

A couple of men picked up the fallen giant and took him into 
the parsonage. The crowd stood irresolute for a moment, unable 
to make up their minds either about what they had seen or what 
they had heard; but all at once one of them remarked that he was 
hungry. They all gave a sigh of relief and exclaimed that they 
felt just the same, whereupon they separated and went home. 


A Shooting Star 23 

Holger Enke was standing beside Annine’s Niels Peter and Jens 
Dahl. He stared after the Professor with wide-open eyes. 

“He had him down,” he said quietly; “he had him down and 
let him lie in peace. He didn’t lose his temper a second.” 

“No, he was grinning all the time,” said Niels Peter. “But he 
knew the Sermon on the Mount all right.” 

“Be quiet,” said Holger, looking up to the sky, where a shoot¬ 
ing star left a white streak after it. 

The big fellow clasped his hands and followed the star with 
moisture in his eyes. 

“What’s up?” said Niels Peter, as Holger put his hands in his 
pockets again. “Were you praying?” 

“They say,” said Holger, “that if we wish while a star is falling, 
it will come true.” 

“Then what did you wish?” 

If Holger had not been so fearfully strong, Niels Peter would 
have gone into fits of laughter, for Holger Enke had the look of 
a very small boy as he said quietly and sincerely: 

“I prayed that some day I might be like the Professor.” 

In the parsonage the missionary was having his wrists mas¬ 
saged. The pastor’s wife was rubbing them, and Christian sat 
looking on. 

The pastor walked up and down the room and asked again 
and again whether it was still painful. 

Every time his back was turned to the missionary, he pursed 
up his mouth and shut his eyes. 

Christian was certain that his father had a smile inside him 
which was not allowed to slip out. There was no doubt the pastor 
was inwardly tickled about what had befallen the missionary. 


V. The Language of Heaven 

FTER all it was Jens who had got a brother. It happened 



one day when he thought the little one was dead. The 


day before, he had seen Jakob Hansen’s puppy lying on 


its side with its paws stretched out and not breathing. “It’s 
dead,” said the foreman. “I’d better tell Jakob; he was very 
fond of it.” 

The next day Jens came into the bedroom and saw Lillebror * 
lying on his side, very pale, with his arms stretched out over 
the bed-clothes and not breathing. “He’s dead,” thought Jens. 
“I’d better tell Mother.” If he was sorry about it, he forgot 
that in the knowledge that he was the first to find it out. 

All at once, he couldn’t say why, he had a feeling that the little 
one was alive after all. The head that was just now dead, looked 
as if it was asleep, and a little while after he could hear the 
breathing; colour came into the cheeks too. “I expect he was al¬ 
most dead,” thought Jens, “but now he’s alive.” 

He shuddered. He had felt, more deeply than he himself could 
guess, how life and death, like twins, sleep cuddled up in the same 
cradle, and that launched his thoughts into the deep. 

“I wonder where we come from. Where are we* before we 
are here?” He stared at the little one, who woke under his gaze 
and opened his eyes. They did not see Jens, they saw nothing 
that was in the room; they were bottomless, but deep down in them 
lay Lillebror himself, looking back for something from which he 
had just returned, and Jens looked down through Lillebror’s 
eyes to see what it was. 

As he was gazing, he had a feeling that his eyes touched the 
little one’s, and at the same time he noticed a change in his own, 
a change that did him good. Something from Lillebror’s eyes 
had come into his and made them expand in a lovely way. It 
made them happy. His mouth was also made happy, for it smiled, 
and inside his breast was the happiest of all, certainty, which now 
came up into his head : he had had a glimpse of what Lillebror was 

* I.e., “Little Brother.”—Tr. 


24 


The Language of Heaven 25 

looking back for, what he had just come from. And that was 
heaven. 

That was how it was. Heaven is where we come from; that is 
where we were before we came here. Lillebror still remembered 
it, was almost there when he was asleep. If only he could speak 
and say what he remembered! 

Then Lillebror smiled, and Jens knew that he understood, even 
if he could not speak. For there was the same gleam in their 
eyes, the same smile on their lips, and the same joy within them 
both. There was not the slightest difference. They remembered 
together. 

And that is why we have to learn to speak when we have been 
born, for in heaven we do not speak as we do here. We are so 
happy that we cannot say a word. Nor do we have to, for we 
look at each other and know it all at once. That is how the 
language of heaven is. Everything at once, and happiness all 
through. There is nothing in it but that. We know it of our¬ 
selves. 

Nor can we forget it. But we can forget that we know it. 
How can that be? 

He looked about the room and saw how wonderful it was. He 
recognized this wonder in it. It had been like that once. 

But one day came and then another—all the days came walking 
into the room and took their places and set their mark on it. 
The last to come was to-day, and then the room was finished; 
there was a chair, and there was a table, and his name was Jens, 
and the art of printing had been invented. 

That is how we come to forget, he thought; the days come in 
and change everything. 

He forgot Lillebror, because he had to think. He went out to 
the hazel hedge and sat in his “chair” and wondered about all 
the days that came and changed everything we see. 

But perhaps in heaven it is always the same? 

He struck his fist against the chair and jumped up. 

“It is” he said. “The Bible says so! To the Lord one day 
is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. It's in 
my catechism. That’s how it is—everything at once.” 

The joy of the language of heaven filled his little earthly ego, 
and he went in to the only one he knew who could speak it to 
him. 

This only one had forgotten it completely. Lillebror was 


26 The Philosopher’s Stone 

crying with unhappiness over his new world. The clerk and 
his wife talked and talked and tried to console him and rocked 
the cradle. The louder they talked and the more they rocked, 
the more violently the little one cried. 

Of course. For he didn’t understand a word. 

Jens went up to the cradle. 

“Let me,” he said. 

They let go the cradle and stared at him in astonishment. He 
had spoken as a grown-up person speaks to children. 

He stopped the cradle and touched the little one's hand. He 
was quite sure of himself, for he had the language of heaven 
within him. 

Lillebror looked up at him, clasped his hand about his finger, 
and smiled. 

They both smiled and conversed in the wordless language of 
heaven. 

Lillebror gave vent to his joy in a first attempt at human 
language—a long series of rolling rrr’s. 

“What in the world’s this?” said the clerk. “Your mother 
couldn’t get him to be quiet. And I -” 

There was such immense weight in his “I” that he was quite 
unable to find a suitable continuation, nor did he care to make a 
downright admission of failure. 

Jens answered dryly: 

“You see, you were talking to him in a language he hasn’t learnt 
yet. And that’s stupid.” 

Now this was nothing but an echo of what the clerk had said 
the day before about talking Danish to a foreigner; but if one’s 
calling gives one occasion, with a rising sense of superiority, to 
say “stupid” to others, it may easily become a grave crime when 
the word is applied to oneself. 

The clerk took his son by the hand and let the rod teach him 
to honour his father and his mother. 

Soon after, he was standing as stiff as a post in the hazel 
hedge. The calm exultation had been driven out of his heart, and 
the place where the exorcism had been carried out was too sore to 
permit him to sit down. 



VI. Pastor Barnes 


D R. LOHSE was saying good-bye to Pastor Barnes. 

“The crisis will arrive in the course of the night,” 
he said; “if she gets over it, all will be well. If not— 
then-” 

The pastor looked at the doctor with a prayer in his eyes. 

“If not, then—the worst will happen,” said the doctor, and 
turned away. 

Pastor Barnes went in. The worst! Yes, it was the worst that 
could happen to him, if his wife died. He couldn’t believe it 
either. Perhaps he himself might deserve a trial, but his call¬ 
ing would not be able to support this, and his calling was the 
service of the Lord, and for its sake the Lord had need of his 
wife. He glanced at the comfortable thought that she would be 
saved because he was a clergyman. But to-night the crisis would 
come, and he would watch. Watch and pray. Watch and pray, 
as the Scriptures say. An eloquent prayer was born in his mind, 
but was crushed before it took shape by the fearful admission 
that it was a prayer meant to be said aloud and heard by others. 
Nobody else would be there; Pastor Barnes felt that he could say 
the prayers of the congregation, but not his own. He bowed his 
head in contrition and groaned: “Lord, help me, help me!” 

This gave him a moment’s peace, and he went into the sick¬ 
room. His wife was unconscious, his anxiety returned, he went 
back to his study and walked restlessly about the room in all 
directions, touched the things on his writing-table, arranged them, 
but left a picture hanging crookedly, because it hung so the 
last time she was in the room, and if she should never come there 
again- 

Never again! It was like tearing his soul to pieces, like stripping 
it lengthwise, he would never again be a whole being. No, for 
even if they had not thought about it or noticed it much for many 
years, it was nevertheless true, as he had told her—quoting Plato 
—when they were engaged, that they were twin souls, which to¬ 
gether made a whole human being. 

27 



28 The Philosopher’s Stone 

‘Twin souls have a common task in life. But when death 
snatches away one of them, the other is sick to death. Is there, 
then, no remedy? Yes, there is; we know, we know that the 
other is with the angels, helping the bereaved one with her inter¬ 
cessions and—we may venture to believe—leading his erring 
steps here below. Nothing is greater than to have one’s twin 
soul in heaven, nearer to God—and thereby we ourselves are 
nearer to him. We must bless and praise-” 

He stopped, appalled, in the middle of the room. He had been 
pronouncing a funeral oration over his wife. 

Was he an egotistical, self-occupied person, incapable of 
feeling real sorrow, but only fear, selfish fear, of losing something 
that belonged to him? Was it God’s purpose to strike his 
selfishness in pieces, and must his wife die to tear him out of his 
self-complacency? He hurried in. Perhaps she was already- 

The nurse signed to him to be quiet, he had made a noise. He 
could not even forget himself far enough to be careful. 

“Is she alive?” he whispered. 

The nurse nodded. “But she must have quiet.” 

He went back to his own room. 

If she were permitted to live! He saw the fresh springtime 
of their youth, when she gave him her love and entered his life 
as a devoted part of it. Those days full of colour—when did 
they begin to turn grey? Neither of them had noticed it, quietly 
the everyday feeling had stolen in. Year after year she had gone 
through her monotonous round of duties and seldom looked up. 
Nobody knew her; she was the pastor’s wife in kitchen and 
dining-room. Why, if he himself had ever given it a thought, 
or if he had come in as a stranger, he would have found her 
tedious. 

But now he saw clearly that it was her youthful feeling that 
had taken another form. That was what had made it possible 
for her to take up the daily toil without a murmur. It was love 
that had done it. Only it had no longer the surplus energy that 
finds vent in smiles and caresses. She did not even know wh^t 
it was that gave her strength and will-power. And he had never 
told her, nor seen it himself. 

But now he saw, and she should know it. The springtime in 
them would bloom again—and last. A happy impatience sprang 
up in him, as though he were going to propose to her again. 
He could scarcely wait till to-morrow, when the crisis was past, 




Pastor Barnes 29 

to kneel to her and beg her: ‘‘Will you be my real wife?” 

When the crisis was past! But if —— 

He must look disaster in the face. Perhaps that would be 
enough. Perhaps God would not try him harder, if he volun¬ 
tarily bent under the blow and allowed his self-concern to be 
shattered. But it would have to be without reserve. For she 
might die. He forced himself to see this. Dead, lifeless, in 
her coffin. He could not bear it. But he would, he must. He 
saw the coffin, the flowers, he noted their scent, the scent of 
flowers strewed over his wife’s coffin, the church, the people, all 
his congregation; he felt a pain at his heart, as though it were being 
squeezed and broken, and he thought: “Now I am dying,” and 
rose—as he thought—to collapse for ever. 

But he did not collapse. His body was erect, his limbs supple 
as steel, a clear, radiant light was kindled in his eyes, and at the 
same moment he felt within him the words he would speak at 
his wife’s grave. They lay within him, complete and ready in an 
instant, a perfect work of art, as though made by God himself. 

Half in an intoxication of gratitude, half in mortal dread, he 
went to the sick-room, where the nurse met him at the door and 
whispered: “The crisis has come. I think she will come through 
it. Wait till I call.” 

She thinks she will come through it! He fell on his knees and 
thanked God. 

Then wait, wait patiently, till the nurse calls, and then in to 
his wife to begin the new life, their real life together. 

He had to find something to occupy his thoughts, they were 
so excited. Reading was impossible, for his own thoughts 
swarmed into his brain. Perhaps he could hold them fast with 
the funeral oration which had leapt out fully formed at the 
moment when he thought he was going to die. He sat down and 
found that place in himself where the germ of the speech lay, 
and as he got up again and walked backwards and forwards it 
expanded in all its details, moving thoughts cast in imperishable 
words, fit to rouse the most sluggish souls. The sacred throes 
of the artist thrilled through him as the work took shape. His 
cheeks turned pale, his eyes grew moist, he was lifted away from 
lime and place into the midst of the congregation, master of their 
collective consciousness. 

God be praised that there was no need for him to make that 
speech now. 


30 The Philosopher’s Stone 

But one day, many years on, when he himself was soon to 
follow her, he would look forward to preaching this sermon over 
her. She deserved it. It should live as a memorial to her. 
He could see it, printed and published: “Funeral Oration by 
Pastor E. Barnes at His Wife’s Grave, the-” 

The door opened softly, and the nurse came in. 

“It is all over.” 

Pastor Barnes looked at her without understanding. 

The nurse went out, Pastor Barnes stayed in his chair. 

Still he had not understood. . . . 

Up to the very time of the interment he looked like a man 
who understood nothing. 

When he was asked if he would speak himself at his wife’s 
grave, he answered mechanically: 

“I was writing her funeral oration at the moment she died.” 

Christian, who was present and heard this, turned from his 
father in disgust, went out into the garden, and was entirely 
alone in the world. 

On the day of the funeral, when the first hymn had been sung, 
Barnes whispered like a helpless boy to his colleague of the 
neighbouring parish: 

“Will you do it for me?” 

His neighbour advanced to the coffin and spoke without prep¬ 
aration and hesitatingly. 

After the ceremony Barnes forgot to thank people for their 
sympathy, took Christian by the hand, and went over to the 
parsonage. 

Outside the door he stopped, looked at Christian, and gave 
himself up to weeping like a worthless, unhappy creature. 

Christian saw his father for the first time, wept with him, and 
loved him. 


VII. “The Open” 


E VERY time Jens was alone with Lillebror, he slipped of 
his own accord into that silent, most primitive part of his 
ego which was entirely himself, before he knew there 
were things one might do and things that were forbidden. He 
was in the happy world of the language of heaven, and the feeling 
that they both knew all the things about each other which could 
not be put into words, did not fade. 

Not only that, but it grew and came to include more than 
themselves. 

One summer morning they came out early, while the dew 
still lay on the grass and twinkled at them. 

Jens happened to look at the road and found that he was 
fond of it. He was fond of it in the same way as he was fond 
of Lillebror, and he thought he could see in the road that it 
liked him too. 

He could feel this right into the soles of his feet, which tickled 
with the desire to touch the road. He pulled off his shoes and 
stockings. 

Lillebror, who always did the same as Jens, pulled off his too 
and ran on ahead across the playground. 

Jens followed him, looking at the soft prints of little naked 
feet; the tracks seemed to him so alive that he could not only 
see them, but hear and feel them. 

Across the playground the tracks lay close together like teeth 
in a mouth. The sun came out from behind a cloud and shed 
its light over the earth. The playground was smiling. 

Under the elder-tree by the churchyard wall stood Lillebror 
lost in wonder. 

Jens went over to see what there was to amuse him. 

There was nothing, but Lillebror’s eyes were fathomless. 
Jens looked into them and saw that Lillebror stood open . Jens 
could see at the same time what he was, and how he was aware 
that he was so. The language of heaven was a bigger thing than 
he had known. He understood how God could be all-knowing. 

3i 


32 The Philosopher’s Stone 

When he turned to the elder-tree, he saw that it stood open 
like Lillebror, and he knew that was what the child was wonder¬ 
ing at. He could see what the elder was, and how it was aware 
that it was so. 

It was as though the elder breathed into him, and when the 
breath of the elder was in him he felt a great joy, which he 
knew; the joy of the language of heaven. The elder also spoke 
the language of heaven in its inmost being. For of course God 
had created it too. 

There was something in him which insisted on his sitting 
down under it; Lillebror was already seating himself comfort¬ 
ably. So he too knew that the elder was inviting them in. 

There were the three together, happy in that which we have 
no words to say. There they would sit a little while. 

They did so, and time stood still in their hearts a little while. 

But in their stomachs, which must have belonged to the closed 
world, time continued to move on, and by lunch-time it had left 
distinct traces: they were very hungry. 

They got up. “The time must have passed without our 
knowing it,” said Jens. 

They went across the playground, but over by Jakob Hansen’s 
gate they were stopped by a barking and loud cries of a woman’s 
voice. 

The yard dog had got loose and was rushing towards them. 
The servant-girl saw it, ran into the house screaming, and called 
out that Hector was killing the children. 

Jakob Hansen and his men left their lunch, but dared not 
tackle the dog unarmed. One got a gun, another a spade, 
another a fork. All the time the girl was shrieking that the 
children must be bitten to death already; she had seen the 
dog rush at them, but dared not go to their help, for Hector was 
savage as a wolf. 

It made a dash for the boys just as they had left the elder. 
In spite of their hunger they had not quite come back to the closed 
world, where we reflect and understand what danger is. 

When Jens saw the dog come rushing at them with bristling 
coat and bared teeth, it did not occur to him that it meant him 
any harm. He simply saw that the dog stood open. He saw 
what Hector was, and how he was aware that he was so. 
“You’re a good watch-dog,” he said. “Nobody can get past you 
when you’re loose in the yard.” 


33 


“The Open” 

And he put out his hand and patted him. 

When Jakob Hansen and his men arrived with their weapons, 
the dog was quietly allowing himself to be patted by both the 
boys. 

Jakob wiped the sweat from his forehead before he recovered 
himself sufficiently to go and take Hector by the collar. 

“I can’t make it out,” he said; “it’s a miracle he didn’t bite 
them to pieces.” 

But the girl, who had come up in rear of the men, under¬ 
stood. Now she had seen what a power there was in innocence, 
she said, and she was converted from that hour. 

She wanted conversion too, for it was a long time since she 
had been innocent. 


VIII. The Sunshine of the Playground 

T HE elder was not the only one. All things stood open; 

he saw what they were and how they knew that they 
were so. The hazel hedge was open, and he sat in his 
“chair” by the hour and held intercourse with it. A power which 
could not be seen, but could be plainly felt, penetrated him and 
rocked his soul in its own measure. A mother was not so gentle, 
a father not so strong, the food he ate not so near as this invisible 
power. 

The hours passed, as he sat in its embrace in the open hedge; 
outside the hedge they passed, not inside it, where everything 
was “a little while.” Outside the hedge people went by; they saw 
him and the hedge, and yet did not see them—saw only their 
outside. 

But one day a man came in. Jens felt that he was not alone; 
he turned and saw that a smile had come into the hedge. The 
smile belonged to a face, the face belonged to a body, which stood 
out on the road. But the smile was in the hedge. Jens looked 
at the Professor’s eyes and knew that not only the hedge but he 
himself stood open to them. The Professor’s voice slipped into 
the hedge without the hedge closing, as it usually did when people 
spoke to him. 

“Have you had the gift long?” said the voice. 

“Yes,” said Jens, though he didn’t quite know whether he 
said it aloud or only thought it clearly. 

“Is it people as well as things,” asked the Professor, “or 
only things?” 

“Only things,” said Jens, “and sometimes animals.” 

“All kinds of things?” 

“Mostly things that can grow,” he said. “Stones and suchlike 
are—are more—dull. And people are too—too thick.” 

He stared at the Professor’s eyes, astonished to find them 
outside the hedge. He had a feeling that they were within 
himself; that was, of course, because he stood open to the 
Professor. 


34 


The Sunshine of the Playground 35 

Before he knew it the Professor had nodded and was already 
some way down the road. 

But the eyes, it seemed to Jens, stayed with him. 

Then Kristen the sexton came to fetch a rake he had left in 
the hedge. 

“What are you grinning at?” asked Kirsten. 

Jens could not answer for laughing. And what was the use 
of saying it? He laughed still more, for Kristen stood open; 
he saw what he was, and how Kristen was aware that he was 
so. 

-A day came when he felt the need of talking to somebody 

about it, but Lillebror was too small and the others did not 
understand it. Unless it was Christian Barnes, who had once 
told him that he had seen into heaven. 

But since his mother’s death Christian Barnes had begun to 
go to the grammar school in the market town, and when Jens 
went over to the parsonage, Christian showed him German, 
English and French grammars, and all that philological learning 
put the language of heaven to flight. 

Besides, a certain strangeness and reserve had come over 
Christian, a shyness and a spirit of inquiry, something too 
grown up for his age. 

Jens went no more to the parsonage, their roads had parted; 
but when they met occasionally, a remnant of the intimacy of their 
first hand-clasp still clung about them. 

One day Christian Barnes stood in the garden watching the 
games of the village school-children. At last Jens thought he 
ought to go over to him. Christian looked so lonely. 

“Aren’t you in school to-day?” he asked. 

“Monthly holiday,” answered Christian. 

“What’s that?” 

“We get a day off once a month.” 

What was it like at the grammar school? 

“Oh, all right. Lots of lessons. And pretty brutal in the 
playground.” 

“What’s brutal?” 

“The big boys lam the little ones.” 

“They daren’t do that here,” said Jens. “As long as we’ve 
got Holger Enke we have peace.” 

“Yes,” said Christian, “but what is it that makes Holger pull 
up when he gets wild himself?” 



36 The Philosopher’s Stone 

“What is it?” 

Christian pointed to little Hansine, who came running past 
them with both dimples in action. There was a wake of 
smiling faces behind her. 

“Once I was angry with my mother,” said Christian, 
“and was never going to forgive her. I was quite wicked and 
wanted to hate. I went out of doors. But outside the sun 
was shining, and as I walked it shone the wickedness out of me. 
I kicked against it, but it was no use, I got good again. Hansine 
is like that. There’s nothing to be done about it; everybody is 
good when she smiles.” 

“It’s funny you should say that,” said Jens, “for I have 
always thought she was like a patch of sunlight on the floor. 
But that’s nonsense.” 

“It’s nonsense if the grown-ups hear it,” said Christian. 
“Do you know anything of the grown-ups?” 

“Know anything?” Jens wondered whether Christian meant 
that they “stood open.” 

“I know a lot about the grown-ups,” Christian continued. 
“I can tell you-” 

He looked as if he would like to tell something but was 
ashamed of it. He looked neither good nor nice. Whatever 
he knew about the grown-ups, it was nothing to do with their 
“standing open.” 

Christian gave Jens a look as if there were twenty years 
between them. 

“Good-bye,” he said, and went away. 

But he came back at once. 

“If there weren’t a few like Hansine,” he said, “everybody 
would go straight to hell. Now you know it.” 

With that he went off again. 

In the garden he met the pretty parlour-maid, whom until quite 
recently he had looked upon in much the same way as Hansine. 
He gave her a shy glance. 

“What makes you look as if you’d done something you mustn’t?” 
she said. 

He felt inclined to spit in her face. 

A vague feeling of sympathy gripped her. She thought it was 
because the boy had no mother. 

“You have always been a good boy, Christian,” she said, as she 


The Sunshine of the Playground 37 

took him in her arms and kissed him. Immediately after, she 
pushed him away. 

“But, Christian!” she cried; “what in the world-” 

She looked at him searchingly, and then took his wrist cautiously 
but firmly. 

“What sort of schoolfellows have you got at the grammar 
school?” she said. “They’re not spoiling you, I hope?” 

“Let me go!” he said furiously. “I hate you! I hate the 
whole lot of you!” 

He tore himself free and ran into the field. 

Yes, she was the right one to ask if his schoolfellows were spoil¬ 
ing him! Hussy! 

He began to cry from a mixture of sorrow and anger. 

To tell the truth, he had been in love with her. As if you couldn’t 
be in love with a grown-up person because you went to school! 
That’s just what you could. Grown-ups and children could eas¬ 
ily be in love with each other, but grown-ups and grown-ups— 
there was a devil of a lot of love in it with them. Thanks, he 
knew what they were. And she was like the rest. 

He’d just like her to know that Jens the herdsman had dragged 
him into the barn one day and they had hidden in the straw, 
where they could see all over the threshing-floor. There she 
came with the farmer’s man, who pawed her all over, while her 
face, which in the ordinary way reminded him of Hansine’s, got 
swollen and flushed and ugly, and then- 

And then the herdsman, while this was going on! And himself, 
every time he had looked at her face since and remembered the 
change that came over it! 

If he could have had his way he would have sent that herdsman 
straight into hell without a moment’s hesitation. 

But the grown-ups themselves, the hypocritical devils! Now 
he knew all their mysterious hints, which they chuckled over. 

Even those who had children. 

Little Helen Stromstad! Poor good little Helen! 

That playtime on Thursdays, when he always walked and 
talked with her, was the only good time he had. 

One day she took him home in their playtime. And there he 
was introduced to “Mother” and “Uncle Hans.” This was Bjerg, 
the lottery collector. 

When he came home he told his father about it and saw the 


38 The Philosopher’s Stone 

familiar grown-up wrinkle on his forehead and the covert twist of 
the mouth. He knew beforehand what his father would say, and 
it came right enough: 

"I would rather you did not go to Helen Stromstad’s home.” 

“Why? She is a nice girl.” 

“No doubt, no doubt,” said Pastor Barnes. “Little Helen is a 
sweet and good girl. And I have no objection to your talking 
to her. Quite the contrary—I might almost say. But—but 
you must not go home with her. I can’t give you a reason.— 
You will understand later on.” 

Oh, yes, he understood later on. 

One playtime, when Helen had not come, he looked through the 
leaves into the garden and there sat Bjerg and Helen’s mother, 
and their faces were just like those of the farmer’s man and the 
parlour-maid in the barn. 

“Is Bjerg your mother’s brother or your father’s?” he asked 
Helen afterwards. 

“Neither,” said she. “He is no relation at all; we only call 
him uncle because he’s such a good old friend of mother and 
me.” 

Later on he found out that Helen’s mother’s name was not Mrs. 
Stromstad, but Miss Hansen. 

Yes, he had seen grown-ups when they were hiding together, 
and now he was always lying in wait for the sly twitchings of 
their faces which disclosed what they were ashamed to acknowl¬ 
edge but took a secret delight in. 

He was filled with profound disgust, but it was no protection 
against temptation. 

Little Helen, who walked pure and innocent among grown-up 
people, little Helen, who was so dainty and delicate that she 
might have been an angel, her he loved, and he could have killed 
anybody who told her what he knew about her mother. 

His feeling for her was at the same time one of respectful 
worship and watchful protection. 


IX. Gone 


G ONE. Eyes looked about in all directions in a vain at¬ 
tempt to penetrate that wicked GONE which surrounds 
us on all sides and may suddenly take our things when 
we have just used them. 

Lillebror’s spade was gone, the little spade with the red-painted 
blade and the brown handle. He had just been playing with it, 
and now it was spirited away and lay asleep somewhere in the in¬ 
visible GONE! 

“I’ll find it all right,” said Jens, for there were tears in Lille¬ 
bror’s eyes. 

“Yes, but I’m sure GONE is a big place,” said Lillebror, “and 
it can move about, because Mother says it’s nowhere and every¬ 
where.” 

“I shall find it all the same,” said Jens; “I promise you.” 
Lillebror looked up at him and grasped the fact that Jens was 
very big. Now that he knew he would get his spade back, he 
was happy and began to play with a cart. 

After searching for some time, Jens realized that he would not 
be able to keep his promise that day. 

The next day he went to the school treat; the day after, he 
forgot to look, and the day after that, Lillebror lay ill in bed and 
had no use for his spade. 

He stayed in bed and did not say very much. But one day he 
asked if Jens had found his spade. 

“Not yet, but I shall find it all right when you are well again,” 
said Jens. 

“I’d like to have it here,” said Lillebror. 

“Then I’ll look,” said Jens. He went out and looked for it 
a little while, till Annine Clausen’s Niels Peter came by with a 
shrike he had shot. Then they started throwing stones at a gate¬ 
post, and when they had finished that, it was evening. 

The next day Lillebror did not ask for his spade, he asked for 
nothing. 

The night passed, and when Jens got up in the morning his 

39 


40 The Philosopher’s Stone 

mother was standing by Lillebror’s bed and the sexton’s wife was 
bending over it and listening. Then she rose slowly and said: 

“He has gone home.” 

And as the mother did not answer a word, the woman went 
on: 

“Our little friend is gone.” 

Jens could not move his feet; he stood fixed in Lillebror’s 
own notion of the omnipresent GONE. He thought someone was 
saying that Lillebror had gone away to find his spade because 
Jens had forgotten to look for it. 

Lillebror lay there stiff and white, and his golden locks seemed 
still to curl as in life about his forehead. 

He looked nearly the same as that day a long, long time ago 
when Jens thought he was dead, the day when he rose like a 
bubble from the bottomless depths of his eyes up into the clear 
daylight and gave Jens a share in his memory of the place they 
had come from. 

The sexton’s wife whispered to his mother—he could hear it 
quite well, as though from far away: 

“He doesn’t understand that the little one is dead,” said the 
sexton’s wife. 

He stood looking at the tightly shut eyelids. They would never 
open any more. He knew that Lillebror had sunk again, deep 
down into the bottomless eyes, to the place where he had lain 
that day long, long ago, looking back at the country from which 
he had come. And this time a longing had come over him and he 
had slipped back altogether. Jens was filled with an unaccount¬ 
able feeling of happy peace. 

“He can’t make it out at all,” whispered the sexton’s wife; “but 
it will come soon enough.” 

He remembered how he had met Lillebror deep down in his 
eyes and how his own had become bottomless too; and he made 
an effort to come deeper in, farther away, and find him again. 
But at a certain distance he always came to an invisible gate 
through which he could not pass, and he shook his head. 

“He won't understand,” whispered the sexton’s wife; “you can 
see by his looks he won’t believe it.” 

“I can’t, Lillebror,” said Jens within himself, “I can’t come so 
far.” 

A kind of soft air enveloped him, almost like Lillebror’s 
breath, and he felt a weak but distinct and familiar pressure 


Gone 41 

of small fingers on his left hand. He turned round in gladness 
—in the empty room he saw none but the sexton’s wife and his 
mother staring at him intently. 

Then he bent over Lillebror’s bed and looked with their eyes at 
the white face and the stiffened fingers that would nevermore be 
able to clasp his hand softly. Sobbing with hopeless grief, he 
fell on his knees and laid his face on the bed, and wept and 
wept till he could neither think nor stir. 

Then they took him and carried him half unconscious into the 
parlour, where they laid him on a sofa. 

“Ah, yes,” said the sexton’s wife, as she spread a rug over 
him, “when at last he understood it, he understood it far too 
well.” 


X. In the Elder-tree 


f ■""^HEN came a time of restless searching and waiting. He 
hoped for a repetition of the little pressure of the hand 
which he had felt immediately after his brother’s death; 
he waited for some sign that Lillebror was living as an angel 
and thinking of him; he watched with all his senses strained, but 
it was just as when he had been looking for the spade: Lillebror 
was gone, perhaps he was close at hand, perhaps far away, 
perhaps he did not exist any more. His thoughts grew tired and 
dull, and yet they hurt him, as one’s legs may hurt when one has 
walked a terribly long way and had no chance of resting. And the 
days succeeded one another, long, bright days, made for playing 
in, but he had not the slightest wish to play. 

He felt the need of talking to someone, but there was nobody 
to talk to about Lillebror; nobody had really known him, and 
nobody knew where he was. “Now he is lying in his grave,” 
they said one day, and “Now he is in heaven,” the next. 

And the days succeeded one another every morning, long and 
bright, and the boys played in the playground, where Lillebror’s 
footprints had once smiled at him. Shouting and yelling they 
trampled the place where those tracks had been. He himself 
scarcely had the heart to walk there. 

One day he was walking along the road by the hedge, peeling 
a willow rod. A little fellow of about four, with a pot-belly 
and cheeks like a cherub, came out of a hole in the hedge. He 
was a petted only child, a little flat-headed rustic, stuffed with 
dainties but healthy enough to stand them. Accustomed to be 
given whatever he pointed at, he went up to Jens and stretched 
out his hand for the white willow rod. 

“Me want that.” 

Jens held it in the air, while he fixed his eyes on the little 
fists, round as balls. The little one stamped and repeated: 

“Me want that, me do.” 

Instantly Jens struck him across the face with the rod as hard 
as he could. 


42 


In the Elder-tree 43 

The little one set up a deafening roar, and somebody came 
through the gap. 

It was Holger Enke. 

Jens saw his eyes stiffen. A bigger boy had struck a smaller 
one. He knew what would happen. And there was nobody about 
to tell Holger when to stop. He already felt his ribs smashed and 
his face pounded to a jelly. 

Besides his fear he was stricken with sorrow, not for what he 
had done, but because Holger had always been his friend and 
protector and was now against him. 

This showed in his eyes, and Holger stopped before striking 
him and asked with mingled surprise and threatening: 

“What did you do it for?” 

Jens honestly tried to tell the truth. 

“He was so fat.” 

“I asked you why you struck him.” Holger came a step 
nearer. 

Jens burst into tears, for he didn’t know how to say it any 
better. He heard Holger ask the question again right above 
his head, and he hiccuped out, half dead with fear: 

“It came over me. I couldn’t bear him to be here. And so 
it came over me.” 

Where was the pain? He didn’t feel any blows. He was still 
on his feet. He raised his head cautiously to see what was com¬ 
ing, as it was such a long time. 

He met Holger’s eyes, which saw him and yet did not see 
him. There was something in them which could not find room. 

“Did it come over you?” said Holger quietly. 

Jens cried aloud, because he could hear that Holger pitied him, 
so it must be terrible that it had come over him. 

Holger felt in one waistcoat pocket and then in another. He 
had tears in his eyes and bit his lip hard, till the blood came. 
Then he tried his jacket pockets, which were empty. In his 
right trouser pocket he found a knife and looked at it in hesita¬ 
tion as it lay in his hand. It was an old one and the blade was 
hacked, but he had nothing better on him. 

“Would you like to have it?” he said. “It was good once.” 

Jens said nothing, for he couldn’t understand. 

Holger put the knife into his hand. 

“You must keep it. Now go home.—Do you ever pray to 
God?” 


The Philosopher’s Stone 


44 

“Yes.” 

“That’s right. That’s the only thing you have to do.” 

He turned towards the little one and carried him on his arm into 
the field. From behind the hedge Jens heard him say: 

“If you don’t tell about it at home, you shall have a cake on 
Sunday.” 

Only when he had reached his chair in the hazel hedge did 
Jens know that the reason why he had struck the child was an 
absurd idea that the little fellow had eaten Lillebror’s food and 
wanted to take his toys. . . . 

His head still hurt him. Every morning, when the day brought 
games to the others, it brought him the same weary headache. 

One Sunday, when the playground was quiet, he felt he could 
no longer bear that pain in his head and still exist. Everything 
he looked at hurt. 

He went in under the elder by the churchyard wall and sat 
in the shade of its dark leaves so as not to see anything. He 
rested his neck against a branch. Ah, that did him good. The 
elder stood still in the motionless air. He almost thought it 
was taking trouble not to make any noise with its branches or 
leaves. It was company for him, he was no longer alone, and 
he nestled closer against its stem. He got as near to it as he 
could, and when he could come no closer he began to approach it 
from within. A tenderness and a devotion, stronger and less 
disturbed than he could feel for a human being, passed from his 
heart into this peaceful elder, which, without making any fuss 
about it, opened his head and took out the headache; and it seemed 
to him that what came in its place was something which he 
and the elder thought in common. 

It was so still about him and within him that he not only 
saw and felt the elder, but positively heard its inner being. No, 
not just heard, for it was that well-known thing which was seeing 
and hearing and feeling all at the same time—it was the language 
of heaven. It spread through his whole being, all sense of loss 
was gone. A swelling word possessed his heart: Everything. 
And something or other, no doubt the elder, answered: “Yes, 
everything is here.” He knew he was sitting under the elder, 
but for that matter it might be everywhere, there was no longer 
any far or near, long or short. “Everything is here—Lillebror 
too?” He had hardly thought it when he felt the soft living 


In the Elder-tree 45 

pressure of little fingers and he asked, but only in thought: ‘‘Are 
you here really ?” And within him he heard Lillebror’s voice 
say: “Yes.” He asked: “How can you speak within me?” 
Lillebror answered: “Why, you’re standing open, I can go right 
in.” “Ah, it is the language of heaven that makes me stand 
open,” said Jens. “But you, are you always near by, or some¬ 
times far away?” “Neither,” said Lillebror. “Like the language 
of heaven,” said Jens; and Lillebror answered: “Yes, the lan¬ 
guage of heaven is nowhere and everywhere.” “Nobody can hear 
it, and nobody can drown it.” It must have been the elder that 
said this. “Every time you speak it, I shall know,” said Lillebror. 
“And then will you come?” asked Jens. “Then I shall be here,” 
said Lillebror. “I understand,” said Jens; “you are in it always. 
And now I am with you.” And he stayed sitting still with him. 

After a long time the elder stiffened its branches, and it seemed 
to him to say: “Now you must go out.” 

As he went across the playground he laughed at himself for 
behaving clumsily for the fun of it. It was silly, the way he 
was walking step by step, getting on slowly. “That’s just like 
when we talk,” he thought, “we say one word after another, and 
it takes a long time, and yet it’s only bits and pieces we manage 
to find out or say. In the language of heaven we say every¬ 
thing at once without speaking a single word. And in the open 
every place is just exactly where we are. Outside in the closed 
some things are near by and some far away. And we have to 
go after them.—But the ones who made up the fairy stories, 
they must have been in the open. And the Professor—he sees 
it. If only he wasn’t so old!” 

He was lonely, but happy, among the busy people around him. 
When his parents mourned, he saw that to them Lillebror was 
gone, perhaps near at hand, perhaps far away, perhaps nowhere 
at all. He himself had only to be open and they were together, 
closer than ever before. “You’re standing open and I can go 
right in,” Lillebror had said, and every day it proved that he was 
right. That was what made a bright and happy look come into 
his face when his parents talked about the little one. They looked 
at him in surprise, and his mother said: “One would think you 
were glad your brother is dead!” He could see that she came 
near to feeling abhorrence for him, and he looked at her with a 
strange, superior pity, because she did not know and nobody 


46 The Philosopher’s Stone 

could help her to know. With it was blended a touch of morbid 
pleasure at being judged unjustly. But this was usually drowned 
in a longing for his mother to care for him as before. 

At times he thought of confiding in the Professor, who “saw 
into the open” and yet was grown up, and whom the grown-ups 
would therefore listen to if he explained the thing to them. But 
it never came to anything. The fact was, when he was alone 
he had no need of help. 

But one day he had a strange experience, which at the same 
time restored him to his mother’s arms. 

He was sitting in the room where Lillebror had died, and 
where he had once seen him wake and rise like a bubble from 
the depths of his bottomless eyes, which were still looking back 
at the heaven from which he had come. He was thinking of 
the day of Lillebror’s death, when he had tried within himself 
to follow him along the road he had gone. Now he was open, 
Lillebror was with him, and he thought: “I wonder if I can 
do so now,” and Lillebror whispered within him: “Yes. Quiet 
—quiet—the language of heaven within you—the language of 
heaven without you—the language of heaven everywhere. Noth¬ 
ing but the language of heaven.” He repeated it to himself at 
least a hundred times, and as he did so the room, everything, 
everywhere was gone, he was nowhere, and in a flash he saw 
Lillebror, not with his eyes but with his whole self, saw not his 
body, but Lillebror himself —and was caught up from his chair, 
while his heart began to throb so that he thought it would go to 
pieces. 

His mother gazed anxiously at him. Her hands, which had 
caught him up from the chair, were still trembling. 

“Jens!” she cried. It was a little while before he could com¬ 
mand his voice to ask what was the matter. 

“You looked as if you were dead,” she said, “and you had your 
brother’s face.—Don’t go away from me as he did,” she whispered 
and clutched him to her. 

He laid his hand on her arm and said with a seriousness and 
quiet authority which frightened her: 

“Lillebror is not dead. He is living.” 

She pressed her hand to her heart and said slowly and hes¬ 
itatingly, like one repeating a lesson—he could positively see a 
catechism before him: 

“Ye-es—ye-es. He is living in heaven.—But you mustn’t go 


In the Elder-tree 47 

thinking about it so much,” she added, now entirely in the present. 

From that day she had no thought on earth but Jens, partly be¬ 
cause he was her only child, partly because she was afraid that, 
left to himself, he might kill himself with longing for the little 
one. 

Though she scarcely had more than a perfunctory belief in a 
life after death, she was nevertheless a prey to a superstitious 
terror that Lillebror might return to fetch his playmate. 


XI. The Cryptic Smile 

T HE days went by without his noticing it particularly. 

In the open there was no time, and outside it he grew 
up together with his schoolfellows and never thought 
that they were all getting bigger. And his parents were still the 
same. His mother’s external face he never got to know. He 
only saw its changing expression; her face was and always would 
be incorporeal. It was different with his father, who always 
exhibited all there was in his face and always looked the same 
age, as though he had been born long before we invented the art 
of printing. His countenance was unchanging as the face of the 
big grandfather’s clock, which was never tired of repeating the 
same ticking and always ready and willing to point out how far 
we had gone. 

But then one fine sunny day Holger Enke, Annine Clausen’s 
Niels Peter, Kristian Mogensen, pretty Tine, and the joiner’s 
Hansine all left school. It made him so unaccountably heavy- 
hearted; he felt like a little paltry thing that nobody took any 
notice of. The day they were confirmed he sat in church and 
looked at these schoolfellows, who would now count as grown up, 
while he still had many years of school. Hansine stood in the 
row facing the clergyman, pure and sweet as a wild hedge-rose; 
the pastor laid his hand on her head: “Hansine Marie Jor¬ 
gensen, do you renounce the devil and all his works and all his 
ways?” She looked with her forget-me-not eyes straight into 
the pastor’s and her silvery voice said confidently: “Yes.” It 
was the joiner’s little Hansine, whose dimples had often brought 
him joy and goodness. He thought he could see her growing 
away from school, through life and right into heaven, always in 
a beautiful, smiling renunciation of the devil and all his works. 
He felt a sucking at his heart and thought he could never be 
happy again, because a boundary had been set up between him and 
those who had now become all at once grown up. It could be 
seen that Tine was so already; she renounced the devil with dignity 
and intelligence. Niels Peter was letter-perfect in his abhorrence 

48 


The Cryptic Smile 49 

of him and believed in God in three articles which did not lack 
a comma. Kristian Mogensen delivered his confession of faith 
in a confidential whisper, but Holger Enke, whose shoulders 
were already as broad as a man’s and whose head was on a level 
with the pastor’s, flabbergasted the congregation by bursting into 
tears when the questions about renunciation and belief came to 
him. Instead of returning the correct monosyllable “Yes,” he 
sobbed out, at once protesting and appealing: “Yes, I do —I 
do really 

After the service Jens wandered about like a lonely exile, with 
a feeling of loss and of longing that could not be satisfied. He 
went off to his chair in the hazel hedge. 

Hansine came past in all her white finery, arm-in-arm with a 
girl who had been confirmed two whole years ago. There! you 
could see she kept among the grown-ups already, she wouldn’t 
so much as stop and say “Good day” to him. 

When she did so nevertheless, with both her dimples looking 
as if it was all nonsense about her leaving school, it made him 
so happy and at the same time so sad that tears came into his 
eyes, and Hansine exclaimed, affectionately as a little mother: 

“But what are you crying for, little Jens? Has anyone been 
bullying you ?” 

He rushed out of the hedge and hid in the garden. “Little 
Jens!—Been bullying you!”—Oh, yes, she was grown up right 
enough. They could never be chums again. She and the others 
were farther away from him than Lillebror, who was dead. . . . 

One day his father came and asked him, with a face bigger 
and rounder than usual, whether he would like to go to the 
University; if so he would have to leave the village school and go 
to the grammar school in the market town. 

The main thing with him was to leave school like Hansine and 
the rest, and so he said yes. 

So he left and went to the grammar school, and there he met 
Christian Barnes again, who seemed not to have grown much, 
looked very pale, and had black marks under his eyes. 

He could not see any sign of Christian being glad to see him. 

But when Jens had taken up his quarters with a hunch-backed 
tailor who had a good-looking, pale face and a military moustache, 
he was visited by Christian nearly every day. For the tailor’s 
garden was next to Helen Stromstad’s. 


50 The Philosopher’s Stone 

He felt very small and very green in comparison with Chris¬ 
tian, whose prying eyes were always discovering people’s secret 
thoughts, and whose talk sounded so knowing and grown up. If 
Christian had not put him up to it he would never have dis¬ 
covered why the tailor so often dropped his work, looked into 
the mirror, twisted his colonel’s moustache, and practised a range 
of expressions, from cruel coldness, icy scorn, to roguish seduc¬ 
tion and manly devotion. 

The two boys had ample opportunity for observing him, as 
Jens’s room was in a wing that had been added to the house and 
its window looked straight into the tailor Henriksen’s workshop. 

“You think it’s vanity that makes him look at himself in the 
glass?” said Christian. “No, no, my friend, it’s passion. He’s 
madly in love with Helen Stromstad’s mother. But he torments 
her, that is his cruel delight. That’s why he sits there enjoying 
the crushing scorn he can put into his look. He thinks she’s 
hopelessly in love with him, and she’s to suffer a bit more before 
he takes pity on her; but every time he lets an opportunity go 
by without declaring his love, he’s torturing himself, and you 
can bet your life he lies awake at night tossing on his bed; it 
isn’t only being a tailor that makes him pale.” 

“But how can he imagine she’s in love with him?” asked Jens. 

“How the hell could he think anything else?” said Christian, 
who swore as readily as any clergyman’s son. “You see, when 
he gives her his crushing look over the garden fence, she gets 
red and confused and runs indoors. Of course that’s because 
she thinks he’s expressing his contempt of her for having a child 
when she isn’t married, and for being mixed up with Bjerg the 
lottery collector into the bargain.” 

“Is she mixed up with him?” 

“I should say so! But not a word of that to Helen. Re¬ 
member that!” 

“Of course not. But Henriksen, does he really think-” 

“Why shouldn’t he ? He sits opposite his glass, he’s got a hand¬ 
some face, and his hump doesn’t show in front.” 

Christian laughed as he pointed to Henriksen, who was sitting 
on his table with his legs crossed, sucking the blood from his 
forefinger. 

“That comes of fancying yourself a hero when you’re brand¬ 
ishing a tailor’s lance.” 



The Cryptic Smile 51 

Jens looked at him in astonishment. It was incredible what 
knowledge Christian had of the thoughts of men. 

But it happened now and then that Christian watched him with 
the same expression of surprise. He did so a moment later, 
when Jens remarked with slow deliberation: 

“Bjerg the lottery collector—he is worm-eaten right down to 
the roots. He will be very afraid of dying.” 

“What the devil makes you say that?” exclaimed Christian. 

“It is something I can see,” said Jens, and fell to thinking 
of the great difference there was between what he and Christian 
Barnes knew about men. 

The more he wondered over the two worlds that exist in human 
beings, the more eager he was to see them “stand open” and 
to find out how far they were from “themselves.” 

His gift of seeing them “as they were” grew with practice, but 
there was always one who defied his clairvoyance. 

Old sail-maker Berg, who always stood with his hands deep in 
his trouser pockets outside his door, opposite Frederik VII’s 
statue in the square, was firmly closed. He had been all round 
the world and seen everything life had to show. Jens would have 
liked to know what Berg was, and how he was aware that he was 
so. And Berg stood every day outside his door with his clear- 
cut, immovable face turned to the square, but the man was bolted 
and barred. . . . 

Jens spent his holidays at home, and every summer day he 
was to be seen sitting in his chair in the hazel hedge and looking 
far beyond Annine Clausen and the others, who went their way 
along the quiet road by the quickset hedges. 

He saw his old schoolfellows working in the fields; they already 
had the ways of grown-up men. Now and then they came past the 
hedge and greeted him with a nod and a smile. But it was 
not like their old school-days, they had a new look in their faces. 
There was a cryptic smile, which made them sometimes hand¬ 
somer, sometimes uglier, than they were at school. This smile 
put a great distance between them and him. 

The only one who was the same was Holger Enke. Much 
bigger he was, and the cryptic smile was also to be seen in his 
face, but when he drove past the hedge, said “Whoa!” and pulled 
up, the secret world of the grown-ups faded out of his face 
and Jens encountered a pair of round eyes which were still go- 


52 The Philosopher’s Stone 

ing to school and could never succeed in expressing all the good¬ 
ness that lay concealed beneath them and wanted so badly to 
show itself in them. Holger, as he always had been, was help¬ 
lessly in love with everything that was small and slender and 
delicate. Before starting his horses again, he always delivered 
himself of the set phrase: “If ever anybody wants to do any¬ 
thing to you, come to me.” The cart rumbled off, and Jens had 
a view of a back it was safe to hide behind. 


XII. The Crime 


I T was a mild day in autumn. All the trees stood as still as if 
they were trying to remember the whole summer before 
they let their leaves go. Jens Dahl was at home for a couple 
of days’ half-term holiday and was chatting over a cup of coffee 
with his mother, who was waiting for Annine Clausen to come 
back after giving her cattle a look. She was due to finish the 
washing that afternoon, but she was a long time coming. 

When at last she came, she could not touch the washing to 
begin with, and it was all she could do to take a cup of coffee. 

‘T feel it in my legs,” she said, “and in my knees, and all over 
me. It’s just as if it was me it had happened to. O Lord, 
O Lord, what a strange thing life is, to be sure. And folks 
that we know, too, that have been going about among us since 
they were little children, not like somebody you read about in 
the paper! What do you say, Madam Dahl ?” 

What should Madam Dahl say, when she hadn’t heard a word 
yet? 

“O Lord, haven’t you heard? Am I the first to bring the 
news ? Well, it only happened this very morning. And now she’s 
lying dead, the pretty, gentle girl that she was! And he! I 
can’t believe it, said I to Martine when she told me. She works 
at the same farm as those two, and she ran over to me and told 
me, because she had to tell somebody. You see, Martine and 
my Niels Peter, they’re sweethearts like, though I think they’re 
only a couple of children, and that I’ve told them often enough— 
but, God forgive me, Hansine and Holger weren’t any older! 
And now Hansine’s dead.” 

“Is Hansine dead?” 

“Ah, you may well say, is Hansine dead? Dead she is, the 
joiner’s little Hansine with her two pretty dimples and her gentle 
eyes, she’s dead this very morning, she’s killed. And it was 
Holger Enke that killed her.” 

Mrs. Dahl clutched at the table as though she was afraid of 
falling, but Jens rose slowly and sat down again just as mechani- 

53 


54 The Philosopher’s Stone 

cally. The news had not yet penetrated him. On the contrary, 
it seemed to come out from within him. He had a feeling that 
this was something familiar. Although he had never imagined 
it, it seemed to him at that moment that in his heart he had al¬ 
ways known that one day Holger would kill Hansine. It had 
to be, and now it had happened. He could not exclaim like his 
mother in terrified wonder: 

“Is it really true?” 

Annine nodded. 

“You may well say that, Madam Dahl, is it really true? That’s 
what I said to Martine. It’s impossible, I said. But she knew 
the whole story. For Holger was fond of Hansine, said she, 
but he wasn’t fond of her like a man is, said Martine. No, he 
must have been fond of her like a devil, I said, but then Martine 
shook her head and started to explain just like a Bible. He was 
fond of her like an angel, said she. I believe he could have said 
his prayers to her. He wasn’t like the other men, who ask us 
to marry them and kiss us and squeeze us when we say yes, 
or sometimes kiss us and squeeze us and worse than that, without 
asking first. No, Holger, he was like what you see in books. 
She was something sacred, the hem of her dress was like the 
cloth on the altar. Yes, I almost believe he thought we could 
get our sins forgiven us by looking at Hansine, said Martine— 
you know she was always such a one for reading and she can 
talk just like a book. I’ve seen him go and help her, she said, at 
harvest-time and whenever she had any hard work to do. He 
used to help the whole lot of us, tied all our sheaves for us, but 
when he tied a sheaf for Hansine, you’d have thought it was a 
nosegay, the way he took hold of it, just because it was Hansine’s, 
though maybe she hadn’t touched it at all. If it was the most 
educated man, he couldn’t have been more refined than Holger, 
said Martine, and then she began to cry over him.” 

“Well, but how could he go and kill her?” asked Mrs. Dahl. 

“Just what I said to Martine,” said Annine. “Well, said she, 
it was after he’d ravished her, and he couldn’t bear to see her any 
more, and so he killed her.” 

“You don’t say he’d-?” Mrs. Dahl checked herself, think¬ 

ing of her son’s immature age. 

“Aye,” said Annine, “there isn’t a crime Holger hasn’t com¬ 
mitted this very morning, for I’ve not done yet. How could 
he lay hands on her like that, said I to Martine, after all you’ve 


The Crime 55 

told me about him? Well, said she, it was all through Hansine 
getting into trouble. The miller’s man from Vissingrod Mill had 
seduced her at an outing they had in the summer.—Ah, you look 
surprised, Madam Dahl, but we mustn’t judge Hansine too 
harshly. When we’re young they go and tempt us from morning 
to night, if we have any looks at all. And there’s no knowing 
what may happen; we may be honest and straight every day and 
hour of the year, and be weak just for five minutes and then get 
punished for the rest of our lives. I’d been a good girl all my 
time, but I lost my wits just for a moment one cattle-show eve¬ 
ning—and then I had Niels Peter. And I’ve gone straight both 
before and since. And that lad from Vissingrod, he has a way 
with him, they say, that no woman can resist.—And they all knew 
at the farm that Hansine was in trouble, says Martine, before it 
began to show. Holger was the only one who didn’t see it; if 
she’d been nine months gone it would never have struck him 
what was the matter, says Martine. But then it came one eve¬ 
ning when the new lad was there and Holger was playing his 
concertina and they all sat and listened to him on the stone wall 
under the big willow—Hansine wasn’t there, she kept to herself 
lately, from shame and sorrow, as you can guess—and then the 
new lad, he says, not knowing anything about Holger: ‘How 
long’s it going to be before Hansine has her baby?’ says he. 
Holger got up, but the foreman, who knew Holger and turned as 
white as a piece of chalk when he saw his eyes, he stood up be¬ 
tween them and he said to Holger with a shaky voice, for he 
knew he was risking his life, as he said afterwards: ‘That’s not 
the man who deserves it, Holger,’ he said. ‘You keep it for the 
one who did it. And that’s the miller’s man at Vissingrod.’ 
Holger stood and looked at him, and the foreman stood and 
looked back, pale in the face, but he stuck to his words. Holger 
seemed to be thinking hard and he twisted the concertina in his 
hands till it fell to pieces quite quietly, said Martine. Then 
Holger went back to his room without saying a word. And it 
was a good while before any of them could think properly. The 
first of them that said anything was the foreman and what he 
said was: ‘Now the Vissingrod lad hasn’t many days to live.’ 
Then Martine slipped in and got her hat and ran all the way to 
Vissingrod, knocked up the miller’s man out of his sleep, and 
warned him. Not for his own sake, said she, but so that Holger 
should not be a murderer. ‘Now I’m going to be punished for 


56 The Philosopher’s Stone 

all the wrong I’ve done/ said the man, ‘but thanks for warning 
me. Maybe I can save my body till I’ve had time to save my 
soul. For I know very well that death is on my track/ Next 
morning he was gone, nobody knows where to. But Holger be¬ 
gan to have his eye on Hansine, and then it came this morning, 
when he was standing in the barn with the new lad filling the 
sacks with wheat, and Hansine walked across the yard into the 
cow-shed. Holger watched her go and got so heavy about the 
eyes, the lad said. ‘Oil this chaff-cutter/ Holger told him, ‘while 
I go and see to the horses.’ And just think, instead of that he 
went straight over to the cow-shed, where she was standing, 
and threw her down on to a bundle of straw and ravished her. 
She was still lying there when the police came, just as he’d left 
her. And then, that’s the terrible thing, he took the muck-fork 
and drove it right through her throat—fancy, the wounds were 
all covered with manure—and then he went into the stable and 
hanged himself.” 

“Did he hang himself ?” 

“Yes—what was he to do after all the crimes he’d committed, 
but make an end of himself ?” 

“Mercy on us, then they’re both dead!” Mrs. Dahl thought 
of all the times she had seen them running about and playing in 
the schoolyard. 

“No,” said Annine, “no such luck. Holger didn’t manage to 
die, because the cowman came into the stable for a halter for 
the mare that takes the milk round and he ran slap into Holger 
as he was dangling from one of the saddle-hooks. The man 
whipped out his knife and cut him down. He thought it was 
too late, but there was some life in him yet, and when the cow¬ 
man began to pull him about he opened his eyes, looked round 
for a bit, and then said: ‘I see, I’m meant to have my punish¬ 
ment in this life too. Take me up to the police-station.’ The 
cowman didn’t understand a word of it, but then the dairymaid 
came running in from the cow-shed, shrieking and laughing 
and having hysterics, and then the cowman went in, and there 
wasn’t much mistake about what he saw. Now the police have 
been, and the doctor, he’s still with the dairymaid, they say she’s 
lost her wits, but the doctor says she may get them back. And 
now Hansine’s died a horrible death, and they’ve taken Holger, 
and his mother’s a widow and lost first her husband many years 
ago and now she’s lost her only son like this. And life, Madam 


The Crime 57 

Dahl, that’s a thing we’ve come into without knowing how it 
happened, and none of us knows how we shall come out of it 
again. And here I am, and all this has happened to people we 
know, just outside our own door, and now I’ve got to go to the 
wash-tub and wring out the clothes, as if nothing had happened. 
Oh, dear, what a strange thing life is, to be sure!” 

When Annine had gone out to her washing Mrs. Dahl stroked 
her son’s hair and said: “It was not good for you to hear all 
that.” 

No, it was not. The visionary peace with which he had received 
the first news of the crime vanished when Annine began to tell 
of its details. He realized the outrage in all its grim horror. This 
murderer he had known, talked to, touched, nay, he had been 
his friend. He felt he was tainted, as though Holger even then 
had been a criminal; he thought his mind would not rest till he 
had begged forgiveness of Hansine for having been friendly with 
Holger. 

But Hansine was dead. The joiner’s little Hansine! His old 
fancy, that she was like the patch of sunlight under the school¬ 
room window, recurred to him. He saw her in church facing the 
clergyman and renouncing the devil and all his works in purity 
and confidence. Now she was dead, defiled and mutilated. Now 
and for evermore the earth was dark and cold. 

He went to her funeral, though his mother asked him not to 
go. He was glad to be there. They all came, big and small, 
who had been at school with her. Pastor Barnes advanced to 
the coffin and spoke. “We are helpless in the face of this,” he 
began, and went on faltering helplessly, while the tears slowly 
ran down his cheeks. Then they lowered her into the grave. 
Many children’s eyes followed the coffin with an empty look, as 
if their soul had been taken from them. Little Hans Olsen, 
whom Holger had once picked up and washed, he was there 
too. He cried. He stood beside his little friend, Ellen Nielsen; 
they were both crying and they held each other’s hands and forgot 
to be bashful about being seen so. 

People went home in a crowd. Jens stole from one group 
to another and listened in the hope of hearing some word that 
might explain this incomprehensible thing. But they talked 
mostly about the parson’s words. “Barnes is not the man he 
was,” they said; “not since his wife died.” One of them shook 
his head: “He seems a bit clearer and simpler now, but that’s 


58 The Philosopher’s Stone 

not it. He doesn’t carry you with him”; and his neighbour de¬ 
clared : ‘‘It’s almost as if it was one of us that stood up and 
preached. What he says is only what we’re all thinking. We’re 
helpless, he says. Well, what’s the use of saying that? That’s 
just what we are. Helpless and not helped.” 

Helpless and unhelped, Jens made his way to town. There he 
came across Dorte the basket-woman, who had been in to the 
baker’s to get her basket filled. He had always liked Dorte, 
whether it was herself or what she had in her basket. He felt 
he must speak to her, and told her he had been home to see Han- 
sine buried. 

‘‘Aye,” said Dorte, “now she’s dead, the joiner’s little Hansine. 
And mercy on us Holger’s been and gone and turned murderer!” 

“Been and gone and turned-!” He looked at her in 

astonishment—the air seemed to brighten almost as when the sun¬ 
light suddenly fell through the schoolroom window and smiled 
on the floor—he looked at Dorte, who stood open, and he followed 
her simple perception of life, followed it as far as Holger Enke, 
who appeared before him gentle and good-hearted, the kind 
protector of everything small and weak, but who was now help¬ 
lessly miserable, because he had been and gone and destroyed 
everything both for himself and others. 

Dorte went on, but Jens stood for a long time gazing into the 
world where things and men are open. . . . He went and sat in 
the summer-house in Henriksen’s garden so as to come well into 
the open, possibly feel the presence of Lillebror—and perhaps 
of Hansine; but he was disturbed by hushed voices in Helen 
Stromstad’s garden. It was Bjerg the lottery collector talk¬ 
ing to her mother. 

“Well, we may just as well go and get married,” he said. 

“You know very well I won’t do that,” replied Miss Hansen. 

“But if you’re hurt by the way that hunch-backed tailor and 
all the others look you up and down, then I really can’t see 
why-” 

“You know perfectly well that it’s for Helen’s sake. Her 
father’s family have put up a sum of money for her, which she’ll 
get when she is grown up or married. And they made it a 
condition that if I married, Helen should get nothing.” 

“What the devil has it to do with them?” 

“Revenge. They were furious because I wouldn’t hand over 
Helen to them.” 


The Crime 59 

"But Helen would come into my money if we were married.” 

"It isn’t so much as she’ll get if I remain unmarried.” 

"You ought also to consider that when Helen grows up and 
finds out you’ve been living-” 

"That she shall never find out.” 

"You forget gossiping tongues.” 

"No; but Helen will believe me if I tell her it’s all lies. I 
don’t exactly understand, either, why you’re suddenly so set upon 
our getting married.” 

"I’m not so sure that the reasons you give are the only ones. 
Perhaps you have to consider the director of the drapery 
business ?” 

"There’s no longer anything between us.” 

"But that was how you got put into the branch here.” 

"That’s ancient history.” 

"And then your trips to Copenhagen.” 

"Nothing but business.—But even supposing-” 

"Well, there’s an ugly name for that-” 

Miss Hansen’s voice trembled as she answered: 

"There’s one thing you’ve got to fix in your mind, and that 
is that you and everybody else don’t matter in the least, but for 
Helen’s future I’ll sacrifice body and soul.” 

"That sounds very fine. But I wonder if you haven’t some 
other motive—your own pleasure.” 

"You’re hardly the one to throw that in my teeth.” 

"No,” whispered Bjerg, "married or unmarried, we’ll still 
keep that.” 

Jens stole back into his room. His thoughts whirled round 
in his head and produced a feeling of homelessness, as 
though neither the open nor the closed world had any room for 
him. 

In the evening he went to see Christian Barnes, as he could 
not bear being alone any longer. 

Christian had a good deal to tell him about Holger Enke’s 
examination at the police-court. They had asked him why he had 
killed Hansine, and Holger had answered that he knew it was a 
mistake. It ought to have been the miller’s man, but it fell upon 
her instead. "And then I suppose it was because I couldn’t see 
her any more after what I’d done to her.”—Why had he done 
it? "It came over me, when I saw what she’d allowed him to 
do.” More than that they could not get out of him. And then 


60 The Philosopher’s Stone 

he asked so imploringly for a death sentence, “for that cowman 
unfortunately came too soon.” 

They sat for a long while in the twilight without saying any¬ 
thing. At last Jens spoke: 

“I have a little brother who is dead. Sometimes I almost think 
he is to be envied for never having the chance to grow up.” 

He did not expect any answer, and none came for a good while. 
Then Christian said: 

“Yes, you can bet your life.” 

“What?” 

“That anyone is to be envied who dies before he grows up—or 
gets to know too much about the grown-ups.” 

Jens stared at Christian, who looked as pale as a ghost in the 
dim light. 

“You said you knew so much about the grown-ups,” Jens be¬ 
gan. “Can you understand what Holger did to Hansine—before 
he killed her?” 

A short “Yes” came from Christian, subdued but decided. And 
a little while after, he added—it sounded as though the darkness 
wrapped his voice in thick, black wool: “If you ever see a pure 
face that you’re fond of made coarse by impure desire, then 
you’re lost.” 

“And then think of his trying to commit suicide,” said Jens. 

Christian got up and went over to the lamp. He struck a 
match, which went out, but Jens saw that the corners of his mouth 
were drawn down and there was a deep furrow between his eye¬ 
brows. Christian struck another match, lit the lamp, and said, 
without looking at Jens: “I can understand him well enough. 
More than once I’ve felt inclined to do like Holger and hang 
myself on that hook there.” 

Jens jumped up from his chair. 

“My God! Why, you haven’t ever-” 

“No,” said Christian, turning his blazing eyes upon Jens’s, “un¬ 
fortunately.” 

Jens stared speechlessly at the pale, sallow face under the lamp, 
the light of which fell upon the deep, dark lines under the eyes. 
But at last he managed to say: 

“I don’t understand—I don’t understand a word-” 

“No,” answered Christian, “because you’re only a kid. And 
you may be glad of that.” 



XIII. Cursed Town 


FEW years were drowned in syntax and dictionaries. 



One day, when Jens looked out upon life through the 


tailor’s window and into Helen Stromstad’s garden, he 


noticed that Helen was now wearing long skirts. He mentioned 
his discovery to Christian Barnes, who looked him up and down 
with a sidelong glance, full of the elder boy’s contempt. 

“She’s sixteen,” he said. Christian himself was seventeen. 

Helen passed close to them, but she was full of her own thoughts 
and did not see them. 

“What a fine light there is in her eyes!” said Jens. “It must 
be eyes like hers they call ‘dreamy.’ ” 

“Good thing for Helen that she dreams and doesn’t look about 
her home with waking eyes,” said Christian. “I’d like to know 
what she’s dreaming about. Somebody will find it out some day. 
Cursed town!” 

“Then you don’t know what it is,” said Jens, “though you gen¬ 
erally know so much about people’s thoughts”—in the closed 
world, he was about to say, but preserved his secret in time. 

“No,” said Christian, “I don’t know that, but I know that if 
I was an unbeliever, the sight of eyes like those would give me 
back my faith in an immortal soul.” 

“Can you imagine being an unbeliever?” asked Jens. 

“I can imagine having the choice between unbelief and the 
belief that everybody is going to hell,” said Christian. “Cursed 
town ! And cursed pigsty of a country!” 

With that he went off. Jens guessed that Christian Barnes 
was unhappy, and thought it so interesting that he was within 
an ace of envying him. 

The same afternoon the Consul went into Bjerg’s office, 
bought a lottery ticket, and began to talk as if Bjerg was legally 
married to Miss Hansen and stepfather to Helen. 

In the evening Bjerg went to Miss Hansen’s and advised her 
to decline an offer of a post for Helen in the Consul’s office. 

But the offer was an uncommonly handsome one, Miss Hansen 
remarked. 


61 


62 The Philosopher’s Stone 

“Yes, but the Consul is a widower and has had young women 
in his office before,” said Bjerg. 

“I will speak to the Consul myself before deciding,” said 
Miss Hansen. 

Next day she spoke to the Consul, and the day after Helen 
was in the office. 

A month later Christian Barnes had an altercation in the park 
with the Consul’s son, after which they were no longer on speak¬ 
ing terms; but one day, as Helen was leaving the office, Barnes 
crossed the square, stopped her midway between Frederik VII 
and sail-maker Berg, and told her she ought to be careful of the 
people she mixed with. Helen looked at him with wonder in 
her handsome eyes and asked why. Christian dropped his eyes 
to the pavement, said “I beg your pardon,” and went as abruptly 
as he had come. Helen gazed after him in astonishment, and 
then suddenly burst out laughing. Sail-maker Berg, who always 
stood outside his door, immovable as the statue of Frederik VII 
except that now and then he blinked his eyes and once in a while 
he spat, opened his mouth at that moment and shot a long brown 
stream out over the pavement. Christian, already bowed down 
by his confusion, got it right in the ear. 

Helen only stayed six months at the office. One evening after 
hours the Consul’s son gave his father a black eye in the inner 
office and got engaged to Henel in the outer. The Consul op¬ 
posed the match, Helen wept, but her mother went to see the 
Consul one evening, came home late, but was rewarded by his 
consent. 

After that Helen took a course in housekeeping, and Bjerg the 
lottery collector began to tipple in secret. 

Christian Barnes came to school every morning with his lessons 
totally unprepared, and at the end of the month the head master 
called him up and told him he had no chance of matriculating that 
summer. 

From that day neither Jens nor anyone else saw Christian out¬ 
side the school, but when the examination came off, he passed 
with honours. 

When he left for Copenhagen University, Helen came back 
from her training-school. 



XIV. Intuition 


P ASTOR BARNES stood watching his son as he reached 
out to take a hymn-book from the shelf. That move¬ 
ment of the arm he had from his mother—and the way 
he turned over the pages with his head a little on one side was 
hers too. Pastor Barnes’s eyes widened with an inner light. 
Now he had the boy at home for the summer vacation. A 
student! His years at the University, his own youth, and his 
wife, whom the boy resembled, were all present in the young 
man before him. 

Christian turned, and Pastor Barnes dropped his eyes in con¬ 
fusion and pretended to be looking for his spectacles. Christian 
looked at his father attentively and wondered whether he had 
really shrunk, or whether it was only his imagination because he 
himself had grown. 

A strange life, thought Christian, sitting out here in the coun¬ 
try by oneself and preaching a sermon every Sunday. In reality 
life had left the old man behind, he sat by the roadside like a 
tired soldier, forgotten by the advancing army. 

Pastor Barnes looked up from the table, and Christian turned 
his eyes away and tried to find something friendly and interesting 
to say, but without succeeding. 

The silence was beginning to be oppressive; then Pastor 
Barnes suddenly drew himself up and said with an effort at a 
free-and-easy smile: “Shall we go for a walk?” And Christian 
answered with superlative consideration: “Yes.” 

They were to go from the parsonage up to the church. 

They walked together, but would both have been better pleased 
to go alone, partly because in that case each would have liked the 
other to be with him. 

“I miss your mother,” said Pastor Barnes. 

“Yes,” answered Christian. His tone showed such ready com¬ 
prehension that Pastor Barnes decided to keep what he wanted 
to say for another opportunity, when there was more time. He 
was so anxious that they should really understand each other, 

631 


64 The Philosopher’s Stone 

but there seemed to be too much effort on both sides. In a way 
he would rather his son did not go to church and listen to him. 
For he preached badly, and he knew it. That is to say, of 
course, he preached badly in the opinion of a student like his son. 
He knew very well that people said: “Barnes is not the man he 
was.” But they did not know that this was because he did not 
wish to be so. They no longer admired him, but in their hearts 
they probably liked him better. Just as they liked one another. 
And with a touch of pity, because he had gone off. Well, he 
could bear it, no doubt; but he was vexed with a desire to show 
off before his son. For if Pastor Barnes liked he could still 
preach one of those sermons which used to make people drive 
a long way to hear him. He was constantly tempted to do this, 
just once, so that his son might hear it and he might read just 
once in his eyes what he used to see in those of the whole con¬ 
gregation—profound admiration for the talented preacher. 
Afterwards he would say to him: “You see, my son, that is how 
I used to preach before, but I do so no longer, and I will tell 
you why.” But he could not yield to the temptation, the horror 
of winged words lay too deep in him. He could no longer bring 
himself to use stronger words and finer phrases than his person¬ 
ality could support. Therefore his language was poor and plain; 
and he was lonely, because nobody knew he did it on purpose. 
But he saw that his son had talent, he was very loath to be looked 
down on by him, and it was too much to ask that so young a man 
should distinguish between what a person really is and is entitled 
to utter, and the adornments which he rejects from a sense of 
humility. But his craving to be understood by his son was deep 
and heartfelt. 

He was understood in part, but never knew it, though Christian 
honestly wanted to tell him. It was precisely his sense of his 
father’s upright character which made him shy, because his own 
had a flaw he was ashamed of and dared not mention. He might 
now and then forget it and feel relieved, but never when he was 
with his father, whose first commandment to himself was, never 
to seem better than his real nature. 

Thus they walked together over the old playground, each in 
his own silence, trying to find the simple note which is essential 
for confidential communication between honest men. Each in 
his own way was disappointed, and each blamed his own poverty 
of spirit. 


Intuition 65 

Jens Dahl, now in the top form at the grammar school, was in 
church, drowsing over Pastor Barnes’s sermon, till he suddenly 
started on hearing: “I publish the banns of marriage between 
Niels Peter Clausen, bachelor, and Martine Sofie Petersen, 
spinster.” 

Already! So a boy at the grammar school was still nothing 
but a schoolboy. All the others were a long way ahead of him. 
If only he were even a student! 

Outside the church Christian came up to him and started to 
pump him about the school and the masters. 

When the pastor had taken leave of his congregation he 
stopped before the two young men. 

“Are you coming home with me,” he asked his son, “or-?” 

“I thought of taking a little walk with Jens,” Christian 
answered. 

Pastor Barnes gave a nod and a smile. 

“I understand,” he said, and walked slowly across the play¬ 
ground. 

Jens was scanning Christian’s face. 

“Are you feeling down?” he asked. “You don’t seem quite 
in holiday humor.” 

“Oh,” said Christian, “well—the trouble is, Father’s taken it 
into his head that his company bores me. I’m sorry about it, 
and it isn’t true either. You know, you once said something 
about its being a bad thing to grow up. Well, I think one can 
bear it, all the same. But as to getting old, that must be dis¬ 
gusting.” 

They strolled down the road without saying much, but by de¬ 
grees Christian’s face recovered its old look. He stopped by 
the garden hedge. 

“Your ‘chair’ is still there,” he said. 

“Yes,” answered Jens, “it’s there, and I often sit there still 
and wonder what little girl it could have been I was always wait¬ 
ing for.” 

Pretty Tine came past and nodded to them. Her eyes dwelt 
for a moment on Barnes’s student’s cap. 

When she took them away, they drew Jens’s after them a long 
way down the road. 

He had a feeling that a strange softness had come into the 
air, and it warmed his cheeks. 

The long, dark lashes gave her eyes a wonderful lustre. 


66 


The Philosopher’s Stone 

“I never thought of that before,” he said. 

“What?” asked Christian. 

“That eyes were not only made to see with, but to see into.” 

Christian sniggered, but Jens did not hear him; he was taken 
up with Tine’s walk. 

“Can you dance?” he asked suddenly. 

“Why?” 

“Well—because—it struck me that dancing must have arisen 
from-” 

In his effort to explain himself he turned to Christian and 
encountered a pair of narrowed eyes, divined a quiet laugh be¬ 
hind the crooked smile, and turned red as fire, for it convinced 
him that his own eyes held a photograph, visible to all, of 
a curved mouth, two round cheeks, two firm breasts, and two 
supple hips. 

Then Barnes laughed aloud and Jens blushed yet deeper, but 
Christian said reassuringly: 

“Well, what’s the fuss about? She is really pretty and she 
has a good figure.” 

Jens saw no escape from his bashful confusion but open 
frankness. 

“It’s because I’ve never noticed it before,” he said. “Well, of 
course I’ve known there was a difference between women and 
ourselves. But it was always something inward—and then their 
clothes and their work—I have never seen them in themselves.” 

“By seeing them in themselves you evidently mean seeing them 
quite carnally,” said Barnes. 

Jens blushed again and laughed awkwardly. 

“I admit it came over me like a revelation—of another world. 
My goodness!” he cried in forced animation. “What a queer 
thing it must have been for Adam to wake up suddenly and see 
Eve standing there.” 

“Dressed in the fashion of the day,” added Barnes in the same 
tone, but he changed at once to seriousness, as he laid a hand 
on Jens’s shoulder and said quietly: 

“You are a lucky fellow, Dahl, to have been able to sleep so 
long.” 

Jens looked at him in surprise. He did not feel at all lucky— 
if anything, a cripple like Henriksen the tailor. Grown up in¬ 
side and a boy outside. 

Suddenly he heard Barnes call out: “Congratulations!” 



Intuition 67 

It was Niels Peter and Martine, coming along at a dignified 
pace. 

“So you’re in for it now,” said Barnes. 

“Yes,” said Niels Peter, taking off his hat, “we’ve all got to 
do it.” 

“Yes, everybody’s getting married,” said Jens to Barnes. 
“Young as she is, Helen Stromstad was married to the Con¬ 
sul’s son this spring.” 

Barnes looked as if he had not heard, but his voice was husky 
when he remarked rather hurriedly that pretty Tine was still 
not engaged. 

“Ah, Tine!” said Niels Peter. 

“Well, Tine?” repeated Barnes. “She’s pretty enough, I 
should say.” 

“Ah, pretty,” replied Niels Peter. “My word!” 

But Martine remarked, with the wisdom of a prophetess: 

“It’s my opinion that Tine will be an old maid.” 

“Isn’t there anybody who wants her?” asked Barnes. 

“Oh, they all want her—even this one here,” said Martine, 
giving Niels Peter’s arm a pinch. 

“Ow!” said Niels Peter. “That’s a lie!” 

“Well, if it is, it’s only because I told you beforehand that it 
wasn’t any use,” asserted Martine. 

“And yet Niels Peter’s a good-looking fellow,” Barnes said. 

“There are plenty of them in the parish,” said Martine, “but 
it isn’t any good. Tine was born in May, and the fortune-book 
says that those who were born in May carry a longing within 
them.” 

“So Tine carries a longing within her,” said Barnes. “What 
does she long for?” 

“A manor,” replied Martine. “You ought to see her room, 
it’s as tidy and smart as a lady’s parlour. It’s in her blood. I 
don’t know how it is, but she can mess about with the same dirty 
work as the rest of us and yet keep as clean and white as a school¬ 
teacher. Look here”—she took Niels Peter’s hands—“look at 
his fists, they’re hardened with the pitchfork and the muck-rake 
and it’s all you can do to get the black out of his nails. No 
claws like those are going to get hold of Tine. And they know 
it too, all of them, for there’s never a one that dares to take any 
liberties with her, when they’re sober—not in broad daylight, 
whatever they may have in their thoughts. No, Tine was born in 


68 The Philosopher’s Stone 

May and she carries a longing within her. She’s to marry a 
gentleman, or a schoolmaster at least, who can keep his nails 
clean.—Well, I dare say a schoolmaster’s son would do,” she 
laughed at Jens, “but he would have to be a bit older and not go 
red when you talk about it. All the same,” she added seriously, 
to give Jens a chance of recovering his natural colour, “all the 
same I’m sorry for Tine, because she’s one of the last that’s fitted 
to be an old maid. It’s a hard thing to have a fire blazing in¬ 
side you, if you haven’t anything to put on it. And there’s a 
fire blazing in Tine.” 

“Talk about putting something on the fire,” remarked Niels 
Peter, “that reminds me that we’re to go home to Mother’s and 
eat pancakes.” 

‘That’s right,” said Martine; “it’s the same with pancakes 
as with love; you’ve got to take them while they’re warm.” 

“Yes,” said Barnes when they had gone, “they’re going home 
to his mother’s pancakes and I must go home to my father’s salt 
fish.” 

He went over to the parsonage, and Jens went in to the parish 
clerk’s hash. 

In the afternoon he sat in his “chair” in the hedge and saw 
Hans Olsen and Ellen Nielsen walk past together. Though 
they were now grown up, their faces seemed to him to be just 
the same as when they were going to school. It gave him a deep 
peace to look at them; and he could do so without disturbing 
them, they had not noticed he was there. They walked in silence 
side by side. When they reached the schoolyard Hans Olsen 
awoke from his thoughts and said: 

“To-day the banns were put up for Niels Peter and Martine.” 

“Yes, they were,” Ellen answered in her friendly voice. 

“There’s the school,” said Hans Olsen, and stood still. 

“Yes, there it is,” said Ellen. 

They both stood still and their thoughts went back. 

“Do you remember,” Hans began, “one day in the first class 
when we looked at each other in the writing-lesson and both be¬ 
gan to grin? You can’t remember that, can you?” 

“I remember it well,” said Ellen. 

“As far as I’m concerned,” said Hans, “it’s been like that 
with me ever since—you don’t say anything?” 

“What should I say?” said Ellen. “I’ve known it well 
enough.” 


Intuition 69 

Hans looked at her and seemed much surprised. 

“How long have you known it?” 

“I’ve known it since the day we buried Hansine,” said Ellen, 
“and you began to cry and took my hand.” 

“You cried too that day,” said Hans. 

“It’s always been like that with me,” said Ellen. “I wanted to 
laugh when you laughed and to cry when you cried.” 

Hans considered for a moment. 

“Don’t you think it might go on being like that, Ellen?” he 
asked at last. 

“I’m sure it can never be any other way, as it’s been like that 
always,” said Ellen. 

“Well, but then-” said Hans. 

“Yes,” said Ellen. 

“Then it is like that,” said Hans. 

Then they took each other’s arms and walked past the school. 

“It was in there,” said Hans. 

“In there it was,” said Ellen. 

They went a long way up the road side by side. 

All at once they both stopped, turned to each other, smiled, 
and gave each other a kiss. 

They stood still, the eyes of each resting upon the other’s 
mouth. 

Then Hans took her arm again and they walked a long way on. 

Suddenly Hans said: 

“Why, when you come to think of it, Ellen, we might have 
been like this all the time since we were children.” 

“We have been like this,” said Ellen gently. 

“So we have,” said Hans. “So we have really.” He looked 
at her and pressed his arm against hers. “But now we’re grown 
up,” he said. 

Ellen nodded and dropped her eyes to the good old grey dust 
of the road. 

Jens Dahl sat a long while in the hedge looking out upon the 
familiar fields and farms. Here and there people came out to 
look at the crops; he could see the smoke of the men’s pipes but 
could not hear their voices. He felt lonely, but could not bring 
himself to go anywhere. A sudden gladness came over him when 
he heard voices down the road without being able to distinguish 
the words. He shut his eyes and hoped they would stay there 
a long time talking. 


70 The Philosopher’s Stone 

But they came nearer, and a few words leapt to his ear with a 
key to the meaning of the buzz of voices. 

It was Annine Clausen and Kirsten Per Smeds, trotting along 
and gossiping. They caught sight of him and stopped, having 
the whole Sunday afternoon before them, but felt a kind of 
awkwardness when they remembered that properly speaking he 
was no longer one of themselves, now that he was going to be 
a student. They couldn’t quite make up their minds whether to 
stop and say a few words or go straight on with a surprised 
“Good day,” as though it was not he at all that had caught their 
attention. 

It must have been this sudden embarrassment of theirs that 
suddenly revealed to him that they had once been a pair of nice- 
looking young girls, who dropped their eyes bashfully before the 
bold glances of men. He saw their youth as clearly as one finds 
the original colour in the folds of an old faded garment. It 
took him so much by surprise that he could not restrain himself, 
but continued to scan the lines of their faces and figures, and he 
was astonished to find pleasure in it. 

Annine looked from him to Kirsten, and Kirsten looked from 
him to Annine, whereupon, as though by agreement, they both 
looked at him with a smile which made him blush and feel fool¬ 
ish. 

They nodded and went on. There was a kind of chuckling in 
their backs, but suddenly it stopped. 

“Ah—they’re all growing up around us/’ said Kirsten, drawing 
a breath that was something like a sigh. 

“Aye, life’s a funny thing,” replied Annine. 

“Two women,” said Jens to himself, as though quoting from 
a book. 

All at once he turned in astonishment and looked at Kirsten’s 
broad working-woman’s back and Annine’s more active one. 

Why, they were the mothers of Kristian Mogensen and Niels 
Peter! 

He had known them all his life, and they had never been any¬ 
thing else than Niels Peter’s or Kristian Mogensen’s mother. 
Only as such had he seen them—just as he only knew that side 
of the moon which is turned towards the earth. But now he 
had suddenly come round to the side that looked towards young 
Per the smith and the vanished father of Niels Peter. 

The father of Niels Peter! Why, yes, for it was not only 


Intuition 71 

Niels Peter that had Annine for his mother: there was also An- 
nine who had had a child. Had it against her will, because she 
had “lost her wits for five minutes one cattle-show evening.” 
And Hansine, the joiner’s little Hansine, who grew up and let 
the miller’s man from Vissingrod seduce her. And Holger Enke, 
in whom there was no evil, but who nevertheless “went and turned 
criminal and murderer.” And Christian Barnes, who was un¬ 
happy because he “knew too much about the grown-ups.” 

Yes, as Christian had said, he had been “a kid” and been glad 
of it. For him existence began with a father and a mother, which 
everybody had. Now he was extending his borders, and what he 
saw on the other side of the fence was not pretty. Nobody had 
children because they wanted to be parents, but because they “lost 
their wits for five minutes.” 

Impulse, impulse, nothing else. He felt it already in himself, 
blushed for it and dreaded it. 

Hansine and Holger. They were both better than he. And 
yet . . . And Christian Barnes, who had done nothing and yet 
had thought of suicide! He didn’t understand that, but he under¬ 
stood Holger Enke. 

He strolled about restlessly and crossed the playground. There 
stood the church, the house of God, where Hansine and Holger 
had renounced the devil. Over in the corner stood the elder- 
tree. 

The elder, what was the matter with it? Was it something 
strange in the light, or was there really an expression in its foli¬ 
age, as in a face that smilingly awaits recognition? 

Lillebror! Lillebror, who once rose like a bubble from the 
depths of his own eyes bringing news of where we came from. 

He gazed at the elder, which still awaited recognition. 

Ah, yes, it was you that stood open and received me and Lille¬ 
bror into the open. 

The open! It was long since he had really lived in it. His 
lessons had insensibly drawn him into the world where one ac¬ 
quires learning and experience bit by bit. But a gleam from 
the world of the language of heaven had nevertheless brightened 
his days. 

But was it real? Was it not merely a thing of his own 
imagination ? 

He gazed at the elder. 

Yes, he could see that it stood open. 


72 The Philosopher’s Stone 

If he could only be assured that this was real! 

It seemed to him that his soul’s salvation depended on it. 

He looked at the elder, and he remembered Lillebror’s fathom¬ 
less eyes, when they opened for the first time. All other memo¬ 
ries paled in comparison with this. They faded, shrivelled up. 

He remembered this bottomless depth in his brother’s eyes, and 
how they had, as it were, touched his own and opened them wide. 

The memory was as strong as a renewed experience. It hap¬ 
pened. He felt as if Lillebror’s eyes lay in his and made them 
happy. 

He could not resist the feeling, but let it spread within him. 

It penetrated his soul as a gentle contact. He opened to re¬ 
ceive it. 

He did not positively believe in it, but he yielded to the feeling 
that Lillebror was in the open, and that he could meet him there. 

An inner gladness drew him on; as though with physical force, 
it drew him on to the elder. 

He did not believe in it, but still he could not resist the feeling 
that Lillebror was leading him into the open, as he so many times 
had taken the little one by the hand and led him about in the 
closed world. 

When he stood under the elder he was in the open, set free 
from his doubt. 

In deep peace and unfailing certainty he looked out from the 
open into the closed world and saw, as a simple observation, the 
relation between movement and rest. 

In this lay the difference between the open and the closed. 

A great movement went through the world, a mighty moving 
force issued from the open and penetrated all things, setting all 
in motion. 

This force was the same everywhere and yet constantly 
changing; now it was sluggish and dull, now violent and wild, 
now calm and gentle. 

All living things floated upon its restless stream. 

And not only they, but the things that were called lifeless, 
motionless. It penetrated everything, stones and metals, giving 
them life and movement; nothing was dead. 

He saw it in the world of plants and of animals, where its 
changes were more rapid. 

It was like looking on at the creation of the world. It took 
place before his eyes. 


Intuition 73 

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. But 
we are still in the beginning. 

He saw the living force in the world of men, and there it was 
complete, uniting that from the “dead” world and from the plants 
and the animals, and yet another, the gentle breath that came 
straight from the open. 

This moving force carried men along with it to action. They 
took it for their own will and called the acts theirs. 

But when the moving force had driven them farther on, 
it might be that they looked back and disowned their own deeds, 
taught by painful experience. 

Then arose the conception of free will; they began to choose 
and reject. They began to distinguish between the impersonal 
force and themselves. A character appeared. God had created 
a man. 

This happened in the beginning, but we are still in the begin¬ 
ning. 

But within the open is an everlasting Now, which is without 
beginning or end. 

There is the “seventh day,” when God rests, after a man’s 
character has been formed. 

There he must be sought by the man who desires to follow him, 
while still fighting independently for the formation of his 
character. 

For that is why we are in the stream, the stream of imper¬ 
sonal forces—in order that we may learn to distinguish between 
ourselves and it, and become characters. 

Characters, which then devote themselves in love to God. 

He went home in a deep peace. 


XV. Tine 


D URING the whole of the next day his mind still dwelt in 
a deep calm, where time and eternity were merged to¬ 
gether. He had not, so to speak, come out of the elder. 
Memory and observation coincided. 

Not till Tuesday morning did he begin to think over his ex¬ 
perience, and he was amazed. For men did not know what they 
themselves were. Those who were surest of themselves were 
just the blindest of all. Everybody he saw lived entirely in the 
closed world, without a suspicion of what in the innermost sense 
was “themselves.” 

His father, his mother, Annine Clausen—all w'ere in the power 
of their nature. They glided down the stream and their speed 
was determined by the strength of the current and their own 
gravity. Not only did they know nothing of the open, but it 
had no influence on them. They were never still. The stream 
carried them on. 

He could see into them, and he saw that they did not know how 
near their own happiness was to them. 

But one was different from the rest. That was Pastor Barnes. 
There was something about this quiet man which made him, as 
it were, greater in all his humility. He was not in the power 
of his own nature to the same extent as the others. In some 
way or other he had freed himself from the stream, though with¬ 
out knowing the open. . . . 

The more Jens saw the difference between himself and others, 
the more intoxicated he became with his intuition. He could not 
let himself be taken in by life’s impersonal forces, for he had 
seen them. 

He knew only one besides himself who saw into the open. The 
Professor. But he was old. He himself was young, with his 
life before him. He was born to see into things. He was chosen. 

When his father asked one day whether he had any plans for 
the future, what he would like to be, he said he had not thought 
of anything definite yet. 


74 


Tine 75 

The fact was, none of the usual things was big enough. It 
would have been quite natural to him to answer that he wanted 
to be a genius. 

He walked in a triumphant security in the face of life: nothing 
could take him in. He had raised his eyes above the present and 
looked into the future. 

His deep calm passed imperceptibly into proud, impatient ex¬ 
pectation. 

On Sunday evening he was strolling along the road. The moon 
was early up, and the whole landscape seemed bewitched in its 
yellowish light. It would be one of those nights that tempt one 
to think that the moon gives more light than the sun. 

He walked across a field in full moonlight. Above the slope 
lay the Hill Farm with a look of faery about it. 

He could not take his eyes off it: its gables and walls drew him 
on. Without being conscious of it, he walked on and on towards 
the farm. 

Outside it Tine was standing under a willow, when she saw 
someone coming across the field in the moonlight. Tine was so 
fond of taking walks by herself and gazing into the distance. 

Jens did not see her until he jumped over the stone fence. 

“Why, it’s Tine,” he said. 

“Yes,” said Tine. “Good evening.” 

She looked at him as though she had never seen him be¬ 
fore. 

“Is it really you?” she said. 

“You seem to think I’m a stranger,” said he. 

“Well, I-” Tine hesitated. “You—you’re not really one 

of us any longer. You see, you’re going to be a student.” 

She was still looking at him in surprise. 

“That needn’t make any difference,” said he. 

“All right, then,” said Tine, but could not take her eyes from 
his face. 

She said no more, and he chuckled at the idea of Tine looking 
up to him as one older than herself. 

There came a sound of singing and bawling from down the 
road. Tine gave a start. 

“There they are again!” she said. 

“Who?” asked Jens. 

“The farm-hands,” she said. “They were after me before, 
and now they’ve been to the inn. I daren’t stop here. If they 


76 The Philosopher’s Stone 

weren’t drunk I could make them keep their distance. If only 
I can get in!” 

“I’ll go with you,” said Jens; “then they’ll have to behave.” 

They went towards Hill Farm. The men, who had suddenly 
stopped their noise, disappeared behind one of the buildings. 
Tine stopped in alarm. 

“They’ve gone into my room,” she said. “I’ll go into the par¬ 
lour and fetch the farmer.” 

At that moment the men appeared from behind the cowshed. 

“There she is,” they cried. “There’s somebody with her! 
We’ll give him a dusting.” 

“Come on,” whispered Tine, “there are four of them.” She 
took his arm and started to run. 

The men came after them cursing. 

“We shan’t reach it,” whispered Tine. “Come here into the 
barn, it’s dark. They’re too drunk to find us.” 

They slipped into the barn, but heard the men shouting out¬ 
side : “We’ve seen you!” They shook at the door. 

“Here,” whispered Tine. “Into the hay.” 

They crept up and sat still in the darkness. 

“They’re in the hay,” the men shouted. “Come down, or we’ll 
be after you and break your necks!” 

A couple of them tried to get up, but rolled down again. “It’s 
the drink,” they said with an oath. “We’ll get you all right!” 
they cried. “We’ll wait for you outside.” 

There was nothing for it but to wait till the drunken men lost 
patience and took themselves off. 

Jens was wondering whether he would be locked out at home. 
They would think he had gone to bed. Perhaps he could get in 
through a window. Otherwise he would have to wake his parents. 
At any rate he had a good excuse for being late. What might 
not have happened to Tine! Tine! He couldn’t see her, but he 
could hear her breathing. Funny to be sitting so close to one 
another and not be able to see. He put out his hand to touch her, 
but hurriedly withdrew it, because at that moment he remembered 
her. Remembered her as he had seen her the Sunday before, 
when she passed by him and Christian Barnes. 

“I’d like to know if I couldn’t manage those four fellows,” he 
said. “They’re drunk enough.” 

“No,” said Tine, clutching him. “They’ll all set on you at 


Tine 77 

once. Especially after we’ve been in here alone,” she added, as 
she slowly withdrew her hand. 

“Well, then there’s nothing for it but to wait patiently,” said 
Jens, leaning back in the hay. 

“What a strong scent it has,” he said. 

“It makes some people ill, doesn’t it?” said Tine. Her voice 
was cautious and hushed in the darkness. 

“I think I’d be more likely to get drunk on it,” said Jens. 

“You would never go and get drunk, would you?” said Tine, 
and there was something in her tone which made his heart beat 
with joy. 

He lay smiling into the darkness. The soft darkness. Images 
began to form in it. Clear images of a face, never a whole one, 
but now a mouth, now a cheek, now a pair of eyes with long black 
lashes. 

He was not thinking of Tine at all. He knew well enough 
that, like himself, she was lying there waiting to get out, but he 
didn’t want to talk; he was looking at these images which made 
the darkness alive and the air soft and mild. “Darkness ought 
to be feminine,” he thought. “What is it in French?—or Ger¬ 
man?—it is soft and unfathomable like a woman.” He reached 
out his arms to it as though to embrace it. 

In the darkness an embrace opened to receive him. He sank 
into it, intoxicated, scarcely knowing whether it was real or only 
a dream. It was no definite person he took in his arms; he im¬ 
mersed his whole being deep in this feminine darkness. . . . 

He lay still with her hand in his. 

“Dear,” she said, and went on repeating: “Dear—dear—dear.” 

It was Tine! Tine, whom he had seen last Sunday. In a 
new and violent desire he turned to possess himself of all that 
had been revealed to him as she walked past him and Christian 
Barnes. 

And as she gave him all he desired, he felt that it was Tine, 
Tine of the churchyard path, Tine of the confirmation, Tine of 
the school, and he was convinced that he had loved her from the 
first day he saw her, and would love her all his life. 

They were outside in the moonlight and the time had come 
to say good-bye. Tine’s face was not so happy as her voice 
had been in the darkness, when she whispered: “Dear—dear.” 
Her eyes, with their long lashes, turned dark and deep in the 


78 The Philosopher’s Stone 

moonlight; her mouth had a touch of gentle, saddened happiness. 
She was even prettier than in the morning. He seized her hand 
and would have drawn back into the dark. But Tine, who 
never took her serious eyes from his young face, pushed him 
gently away and whispered softly, as though in remorse: “No! 
Nor 

He tried to kiss her; she avoided it, but suddenly threw her 
arms tightly about his neck and kissed him to dizziness. He 
caught at her, but she shook her head. 

“Go now,” she said. “Your father and mother don’t know 
where you are.” 

“What of it?” he answered bluntly, but felt like a boy, and 
was irritated with her for making him feel so. 

“We can sit on the fence for a bit,” he said, but she only" shook 
her head and looked at him. The distance between them widened, 
although they were standing on the same spot and he felt that 
all her thoughts were with him. He guessed with a bitter feeling 
that she would not have stood like this if he had been of the same 
age as she. She would not have looked at Niels Peter or Kristian 
Mogensen in this way. But then, to be sure, she would never 
have- 

“Well, all right,” he gave in. “Good night, then.” 

“Good night,” said Tine in a dull voice. 

The door was locked when he got home. He broke into a 
sweat with fear, but found a window open. 

Like a thief he crept into his own home and stole up to his 
room. It came off! He slipped into bed with a chuckle. The 
old people were sound asleep and suspected nothing. 



XVI. Closed 


N EXT day he went three times as far as the gate of the 
parsonage, for he wanted to talk to Christian and man¬ 
age it so that in the course of conversation he would 
have to tell him his experience. Each time he turned back, re¬ 
membering the distance Tine’s look had placed between them in 
the moonlight. No, he was not a boy who blabbed about every¬ 
thing. Perhaps that was what she was afraid of. He would let 
her see and acknowledge him as an equal. 

It would be best not to be in too much of a hurry to run after 
her again. He would have to take it lightly and as a matter of 
course. 

But he thought of nothing else, and it was hard work waiting 
the two days that were to go by before he looked her up. He was 
loafing about in the garden, and his mother came up to him. 
“You’re so restless,” she said. 

He put her off with a careless “Am I?” 

She looked him up and down and began to smile, a smile that 
showed both gladness and anxiety. 

“What are you laughing at?” he asked. 

She looked him up and down once more and said: 

“Why, you’ll soon be grown up now.” 

“M—yes,” he said, drawing himself up, but unable to avoid 
a blush. 

“Well, well,” she said, “you all leave us behind; it’s the way 
of the world.” 

He went on to the road and glanced across to Hill Farm. He 
felt rather more courageous about going over there. Martine 
came along. He felt inclined to talk to her, now that she and 
the rest of the girls were no longer a mystery to him. 

“What are you gadding about for in working-hours?” he said. 
“I’ve got a day off,” answered Martine. As she spoke, a little 
clucking laugh shook her. She looked up, as though surprised 
at herself, and scanned him a moment. Then she gave an¬ 
other little laugh, but different, at the same time more candid 
and more guarded. 


79 


80 The Philosopher’s Stone 

'‘If you look at me like that,” she said, "I shall tell Niels Peter. 
—Let’s see, how old are you?” 

“Seventeen,” he said. 

“Ah—well,” said Martine, “then I can give you a piece of 
advice. Don’t you go getting the girls into trouble when you’re a 
year or two older, my boy.” 

“What do you mean by that?” he said, looking her straight 
in the face with a smile. 

She retreated a step. 

“I mean that if you chose you might be just as dangerous to 
have going about as the Vissingrod miller’s man—Lord knows 
where he is now and what his conscience says!—Well, I must 
be getting home.” 

He looked after her in amazement. The Vissingrod miller’s 
man! The way she had said it! How often had he heard the men 
declare it was a shame Holger Enke couldn’t manage to kill the 
miller, since he was in for doing a murder and getting into jail. 
But what about the girls who suffered for it? There was no con¬ 
demnation in Martine’s voice when she mentioned him, but there 
was certainly pity when she talked about his conscience. And it 
was anything but a reproach, scarcely even a warning, when she 
said that Jens might be just as dangerous to have at large. Even 
in Martine’s clear eyes, which always saw to the end of a thing 
and never showed any confusion, there had been a brief gleam of 
pleasure, which she contrived to extinguish at once. In the 
strange sinking look of her eyes he had seen the view all women 
took of the Vissingrod miller, the male with irresistible desire. 
Their conscience condemned his actions, but their flesh approved 
them, and their hearts forgave the man himself. Martine’s warn¬ 
ing amounted to a tribute which caused his chest to swell in a 
short, triumphant laughter and filled him with the desire of seeing 
that helplessly sinking look in the eyes of the girls. Tine dis¬ 
appeared, transposed herself, as it were, into them all; every 
woman became Tine. 

But because she was the prettiest, Tine was again every woman 
in one, and in the evening he went to Hill Farm. 

He did not see her. A lot of men were sitting on the stone 
fence chatting. He turned back, lest they might think he was 
hanging about after Tine. He dared not go over there again 
for fear of arousing suspicion. The days grew insufferably long, 
but at last the idea of church consoled him. She would certainly 


Closed 8i 

come to church next Sunday. Then, at any rate, he would see 
her and there might be a chance of talking to her. 

But that Sunday the service was in the afternoon; the bells 
did not ring before two o’clock. 

It was his mother’s birthday. Unfortunately he had forgotten 
to buy her a little present. It was the first time that had hap¬ 
pened. Oh, well, he could go to town next day and make up 
for it by buying something better. What was the time? Half 
past one. Half an hour yet! Suppose she didn’t come. Per¬ 
haps she couldn’t, perhaps she wouldn’t! Before him was a big 
peony bush, swelling with its luxuriant green and its blazing red 
flowers. A dizziness came over him; he bent over the bush, 
thrust his hands into its rank mass, tore off the stalks, bit into 
the red flowers, and looked about for more to strip to pieces. . . . 

There was his mother at the end of the path, slowly coming 
nearer. He looked for somewhere to hide, but was incapable 
of movement; he felt paralysed and naked, and thought the 
most secret recesses of his mind were exposed to the light of 
day. It did not occur to him that she could have no idea of the 
cause of his outrage on the peonies. He had to find an explan¬ 
ation before she reached him. He had only one desire, that of 
deceiving her. 

His head hurt him; she should not reach the bush before he 
was ready with an explanation. All at once she seemed to be 
standing still. A shadow fell upon her face and an obscurity, 
as of an eclipse, came over the trees of the garden. Their leaves 
had a dead look, as though they were made of paper and painted. 
The bushes were the same, everything was sham. 

He stooped down quickly and picked up the broken peonies, 
which looked artificial like everything else. He hurriedly ar¬ 
ranged them into a bouquet. Something within him said—and 
it seemed to shout loud enough for him to hear: “Stop! Don’t 
do it!” 

But he did it all the same. He went to meet his mother and 
handed her the flowers with a bow of exaggerated politeness. 

He saw that she received them with a smile of naive pride at 
the nice manners of her schoolboy son. He found her narrow, 
and a grin of pitiless mockery flew to his lips, while at the same 
time he turned pale, for a voice within him pronounced sentence: 
“Now lying has come into the world.” 

He followed his mother with his eyes, as she went in to put 


82 The Philosopher’s Stone 

the flowers in water. What was the time? He ought to go in 
and brush his hair and wash his hands, it was just church-time. 

In the doorway he met his father in black coat and with hymn- 
book in hand, going solemnly to church. He looked at his fat 
back and insignificant neck. 

“Idiot!” he said under his breath, and started at himself. 
“What the devil’s the matter with me? I must be nervous.” 

His hands shook as he was brushing his hair. 

“Where are you going?” his mother asked as he was running 
to the door. 

“To church!” His tone was snappish. 

“You’ve no hymn-book.” 

“Damn!” He rushed back for it. As he reached the road 
he saw a woman disappear through the churchyard gate. Wasn’t 
it Tine? If he hadn’t forgotten that blasted hymn-book he might 
have caught her up. He started to run across the playground. 
There, curse it, his hat blew ofif into the elder. He fell in reaching 
for it, and as he was dusting his trousers his eyes fell on the 
elder, which had caught the hat. 

What was it? Where was he? There was the churchyard 
wall, and there was Jakob Hansen’s farm. And there was the 
elder. Yes, that was it. But how the deuce could he imagine 
it was another one ? Still the same! He stared at it, as though 
he had never seen it before. Rot! This branch and this, and 
the crooked one there—it was himself that was ofif his head to¬ 
day. But the smile that was forming on his lips stiffened and 
died, for he heard himself say, in a voice which he thought was 
Lillebror’s: 

“It is closed.” 

There he stood open-eyed with his hat in one hand and his 
hymn-book in the other. Before him stood an unconcerned 
elder-tree. It grew against the churchyard wall, and he had an 
inexplicably heavy, dead feeling that it stood over a grave, and 
that he himself lay buried beneath it. He gasped for breath. In 
some way or other a sentence had been pronounced on him, with¬ 
out his knowing why. 

“It is closed.”—Well, how was it? Wasn’t there something 
about its standing open? 

As he gazed inquiringly at the elder it seemed to him to open 
and shut again in a strangely lifeless manner, like a face making 
a grimace. Then it became just an ordinary elder. 


Closed 83 

He walked round the pitilessly closed elder and seated himself 
on the old see-saw. 

His thoughts tried to find Lillebror. Hadn’t he come to his 
help only the other day?—Here they had played together—and 
Jakob Hansen’s dog didn’t dare to bite them because of the lan¬ 
guage of heaven—but Christian Barnes had learnt German and 
French and didn’t know the language of heaven—and now he him¬ 
self knew two dead and three living languages—but the language 
of heaven was a miracle, and Jakob Hansen’s servant-girl was 
converted and had a miscarriage.—He laughed. 

It was hard to keep his thoughts quiet. He tried again— non 
cuivis homini contigit adire Corintlmm —the black student’s cap 
was smarter than the white—for next summer—if only Livy and 
Herodotus- 

No—quiet, quiet. Banish all thoughts. So, yes, so; then 
it would come back— reviendrait—revenit —rot! that’s the 
perfect- 

It was no good. Every time he came near the open, some tri¬ 
fling thought would be sticking in the keyhole. He struggled 
with it in vain, till at last he got up, tired out. He had a head¬ 
ache. 

But the air was gloriously fresh. There lay Jakob Hansen’s 
garden, tree after tree in riotous luxuriance. Red fruit gleaming 
a thousandfold in the sunlight. Juicy and sweet. Good to eat. 

He filled his lungs with air and stretched out his arms in a long¬ 
ing for something to take hold of, and nodded in satisfaction. 
Road and garden and fields had a new look, like a country he had 
never seen before, and he heard himself saying: 

“This is the earth.” 

That was where he had met Martine. What was it she had 
said?—she did flinch a little from his eyes. 

Tine! 

He would wait in the hazel hedge and see her come out of 
church. But first he went in to look at himself in the glass. 

There was a smile on his face, and as he looked it grew bigger, 
for he knew it well. It was the enigmatic smile he had so often 
seen in Niels Peter and Kristian and Holger—but now he had 
it just as knowing as theirs. 

He nodded at the glass; 

“This is me.” 



XVII. A Tailor’s Tragedy 

T INE had not been to church that day. 

He returned to town without having met her. While 
within reach of her and among the men who admired, 
without venturing to desire her, he was shy and afraid of gossip. 

But once in the town, he behaved with growing assurance in 
the presence of the women he met, and more than one glance 
from a girl reminded him of Martine’s promising caution about 
the Vissingrod miller’s man. 

He grew in his own and others’ estimation. Henriksen the 
tailor began to treat him as a grown-up man and passed from 
hints and suggestions to downright confidence. He told him he 
had thoughts of abandoning the state of celibacy. 

Dahl looked at his humpback and wondered. 

Fortune smiled upon Henriksen and made him kind. He had 
changed his tactics. He laid aside his scornful mask and greeted 
Helen’s mother with a friendly bow. 

The first time she looked at him in surprise and returned a 
short nod. Next time she looked glad and smiled. At last they 
got into the habit of stopping and exchanging a few words over 
the garden fence. 

Ordinary neighbours’ gossip was out of the question; he could 
discover no common human interests in her, she was feminine all 
through. Love was her very being, and love hung about her, 
as the perfume hangs about a rose. Nobody could come near 
her without feeling it. Her eyes kindled hope, her smile gave 
promises, whether she would or no. And when she saw that 
Henriksen had a handsome face, this could be read in hers. 

Henriksen was so intoxicated and paralysed by it that he 
could not say the decisive words. His tongue was tied by hap¬ 
piness. 

But one day it must come. Happiness made him good. His 
features were smoothed out, the perfunctory look of discontent his 
socialist convictions had imposed on him as a sign of comradeship, 
was relaxed like worn elastic, until it vanished altogether. Nay, 

84 


A Tailor’s Tragedy 85 

his greatest pride, his atheism, which he had always worn be¬ 
fore the world like a tall hat, a mark of consideration, was no 
longer so obvious or so jaunty. It was only made up of news¬ 
paper articles and could hardly bear the sunshine of happiness. 
One day in Dahl's room when he gave his usual triumphal cry: 
“I’m a freethinker!” his little Mephisto chin-tuft didn’t look 
nearly so devilish as before. . . . 

Henriksen sat at his window looking out on the quiet, sunny 
street. There was a sparrow pecking among the cobble-stones. 
He opened the window and threw out some crumbs. 

One act of kindness leads to another. Over in the square 
stood old sail-maker Berg, opposite Frederik VII, with his hands 
in his pockets, blinking his eyes from time to time. 

Old Berg! Nobody ever talked to him. But he would stop 
and have a chat as he passed. Berg should be made to feel that 
he too was alive. 

A lady passed by with a hat like Helen’s. Ah, Helen, for all 
she was Mrs. Urup and daughter-in-law of a man like the Consul, 
there was a stain on her pedigree. That stain he would wash 
away. He would rehabilitate her—he spoke the word aloud, 
it sounded fine—she should know the time when she could talk 
freely of “her parents.” 

Yes, he would be father-in-law to the Consul’s son—he had 
a vision of his mother’s face, as clear as if she had stood before 
him in the flesh. Ah, how delighted she would have been! He 
could hear her say: “My son’s son-in-law, young Urup.” 

For the moment he simply couldn’t imagine that she was dead, 
but only that she was somewhere else. And that was what she 
herself had believed. She hated all his freethinking ideas. 
“It’s only wicked people who are freethinkers, my boy,” she used 
to say; “the good know that there is a life after death.” If she 
was right, why, then she was alive now and could see him and 
rejoice in his happiness, and that made him feel good. Was it 
for that she had almost appeared to him? 

And was he sure that she was not right? When he was good 
it was easier to believe in eternal life than when he was discon¬ 
tented and bitter. Besides, he had seen the difference in his 
own home. His father was an unbeliever and had hanged himself 
on a hook in his workshop, after he had lost his money in a bad 
speculation. But his mother, who was a believer, accepted pov¬ 
erty and faithfully worked herself to death for him. It was jus- 


86 The Philosopher’s Stone 

tice if she were alive now and could rejoice at his happiness. 
And she would be doubly glad if he believed as she did. “Young 
people are so easily led astray through bad example, ,, she had 
always said. 

Well, at any rate he would not give that. He went to Dahl’s 
room. 

‘‘I told you one day,” he began, “that I was a freethinker. I 
fancy that must have made an unpleasant impression on you, 
so I want to tell you that I ought rather to be described as a be¬ 
liever.” 

In saying this he felt a comfortable warmth inside, which he had 
not known since he was a little boy and his mother told him 
stories. He was so strongly moved by it that he suddenly ex¬ 
claimed with warm conviction: 

“Yes, I am a believer.” 

When he went back to his window he saw Bjerg the lottery 
collector cross the square, making for the hotel. 

Well, the man drank, he knew that. 

Henriksen’s forehead wrinkled; a struggle was going on within 
him. It wasn’t easy, for he preferred not to speak to,Bjerg. But 
it couldn’t be denied that it was in a way Henriksen’s fault that 
the man drank. Because she had broken with him at last. 

If he could have spoken to his mother about it she would have 
said: “Do it, my boy; it does one good to do good!” 

After all, it wasn’t such a terrible thing to go over to the hotel 
and try to get Bjerg home sober. He ought to be able to make 
the fellow understand that he had got to be a man. Look at him, 
Henriksen himself; he didn’t drink while the business with Bjerg 
was going on. Let’s talk about it as man to man. Damn it all—* 
bless me, I mean—if I can put up with what has been, you can 
surely resign yourself to what is to come. It would be a sort of 
wedding-present to her. “You have nothing to reproach your¬ 
self with; I’ve dragged the man ashore; he’s given up drinking.” 

The best thing would be if Bjerg would take the pledge, for a 
while anyhow. 

Henriksen took his hat and went out. 

In the square he met Helen and her husband. Luck was with 
him to-day, sure enough. He nodded to them in anticipation of 
his role of papa and father-in-law. 

Urup looked back at him askance. 

“Hellish familiar that impudent tailor is to-day.” 


A Tailor’s Tragedy 87 

“He’s an old neighbour of ours, you know,” said Helen 
apologetically. 

“Ha,” growled Urup crossly, “it’s a damned nuisance”—that 
you don’t belong to a decent family, he would have said, but it 
was impossible to say that kind of thing when Helen looked at 
one with such innocent inquiry. Really, she was a bit too angelic. 
She might have taken a little more after her mother, since she 
had the misfortune to be her daughter! 

Henriksen was too happy to go straight to the hotel. He had 
to take a little turn in the woods first. 

Time slipped by under the leafy oaks. When he looked at his 
watch he exclaimed in surprise: “The devil!” 

He had to look at it again to make sure that it was really so 
late. And then it dawned on him that he must be much happier 
than he had known. Full of gratitude, he looked up at the blue 
sky, which showed through the foliage, and said in a resolute 
tone: “Yes, I am a believer.” 

And now Bjerg was to be fetched home from the hotel. 

At this juncture Dahl went across the square and saw that 
Bjerg was sitting in his usual place in the window of the hotel 
and that he was perfectly drunk. 

He himself crossed over to a wine-room on the other side to 
become partially so. 

This happened now and again, when Sunday was approaching 
and he felt that once more he would not have the pluck to 
go over and see Tine. 

With the help of three or four glasses of port, he was free of 
his bonds and saw clearly what he would do, and the last glass 
almost made it a reality. 

If only the seat behind the screen was empty! He didn’t want 
to be seen; it would be bad for him if the head master heard any¬ 
thing. 

The “screen” was a ragged remnant of an old partition, which 
must have been originally put up for the benefit of people who 
liked to take their drink incognito. There was a big crack in it, 
so that anyone behind it could keep an eye on the whole room 
without being seen himself. 

The screen and the room were both empty. 

But at his second glass some people came in. It was Henriksen 
and Bjerg. 

Bjerg had lost both his wits and his balance; he reeled about 


88 The Philosopher’s Stone 

the room and plumped down at the table next the screen. Hen- 
riksen stuck to him staunchly. 

Bjerg didn’t see him until—without ordering it—he had got his 
toddy. Madsen, the waiter, brought two glasses, and so it was he 
discovered Henriksen. 

‘‘Are you here too?” he grumbled. “Haven’t we had enough 
of your jaw?” 

“Why can’t we be friends?” said Henriksen. 

Bjerg was busy with his toddy and did not respond. 

But, a good while after, he suddenly blurted out: 

“Friends—men—women—trash!” 

Then he laughed, as if he had made a good joke. 

“D’l say trash? Hah! That’s true ’nough. That’s what they 
are. Every one of them.” 

“You’re drunk,” said Henriksen. 

Bjerg looked at him with the drunken man’s heartfelt contempt 
for idiotic sobriety. 

“Drunk—hah!—drunk—snip!” 

He got a fit of wisdom and fought with his facial muscles for 
a profound look. 

“Look here—lemme tell you—we men, we do it because we’re 
built that way, but the women, they figure it all out.—Only when 
there’s no chance of being found out—then they’re all for it— 
hide their heads in the sand like the ostrich—don’t know anything 
about it themselves either.” 

“You’re a fool!” said Henriksen. He was angry. The man 
might be drunk, but there was a limit. 

But Bjerg was possessed of his pitiless wisdom. 

“You can see how it was with yourself ! As long as you looked 
—hump and all—as if you were going to spit at her, why—then 
she was ashamed of herself, just as if you hadn’t any hump at all 
—but just as soon as you pretended there was nothing wrong— 
why, down goes her head into the sand—she gets the idea that she 
must be an honest woman—and then she goes and takes on the 
Consul—the old ’un, I mean.” 

Henriksen got up. 

“It’s a lie ! And now-” 

Bjerg looked up unmoved at the threatening tailor. 

“If it’s a lie—then it’s a lie that I’m sitting here drunk.—You 
see the Consul wanted to get Helen—and then the son gave him a 



A Tailor’s Tragedy 89 

black eye—and then the Consul said: ‘I won’t have it/ he said— 
that was the marriage.” 

'‘They are married,” said Henriksen scornfully. 

“Yes, you see, she went to the Consul, the old ’un, I mean—she 
went to him one evening all dressed up for it—low dress—I know 
her—crossed her legs—lots of calf—and all that—And so they 
made a match of it—both lots—and I took to drink.—Is it lies, 
what I’m saying, eh, Madsen?” 

“It’s what the whole town knows on the quiet,” said Madsen. 

Bjerg looked up at Henriksen in triumph, like a player 
declaring a straight flush. 

Henricksen was pale as a corpse. He was trying to find a 
word that would demolish Bjerg and the whole universe. 

“Do you know what I am?” he said. 

“Yes, you’re a snip,” said Bjerg with a hiccup. 

Henriksen struck the table with his fist. 

“Fm a freethinker!” 

With that he left the place like a messenger of destruction. 

Next morning the charwoman came in to Dahl and told him 
that Henriksen was dead. 

“He hanged himself on the same hook as his father,” she said. 
“I saw him there when I came in. Luckily the butcher had just 
stopped outside, so he could cut him down.—He must have been 
dead in no time,” she added consolingly, when she saw Dahl turn 
pale, stagger, and lean against the table. “You see, his hump 
kept him off the wall, so the rope pulled tight.” 

When Bjerg heard that Henriksen was dead he felt like a man 
who has had an ugly dream which is bound to be a bad omen, 
but which he can’t exactly remember. He went down to the wine- 
room. 

“Madsen,” he said confidentially, “wasn’t I here with Henriksen 
last night?” 

Yes, Mr. Bjerg had been there. 

“What were we doing?” 

Madsen, who also knew of Henriksen’s death and saw the state 
of the case, gave a brief and instructive account of their meeting. 

Without taking anything and without saying anything, Bjerg 
went off to the Good Templar Lodge and signed the pledge. 

Nor was the third customer of the wine-room feeling very 
comfortable. Dahl was seized by a fear that the forces which 


90 The Philosopher’s Stone 

had made Bjerg a drunkard and Henriksen a suicide might also 
get command of him. 

When Sunday came he went to church before appearing at 
home, and when his father asked him at dinner-time whether he 
had begun to think of what study he would take up when he had 
passed his matriculation, he replied that he wanted to take 
theology. 

His mother gave a happy smile, his father nodded satisfaction 
and said: 

“Then you feel a call to preach the Word.” 

Dahl had not got so far as that; he only felt the need of saving 
his soul. 


XVIII. The Night between Friday and 
Saturday 

O NE of his landladies—the “crooked” one—put her 
shining polypous nose in at the door. 

“Ex—cuse me, Mr. Dahl, it—it’s only a 1—letter.” 
Her face was accustomed to wear a snappish and spiteful look, 
smiles did not become her. She was like a dog that ducks its 
head, wags its tail, and gets ready to bite you in the leg. 

She carefully put the letter on the edge of the table, turned 
her crooked back, and disappeared, leaving a faint odour of spirits 
behind her. 

He got up and rinsed his mouth for the fiftieth time, for he 
happened to think of someone who was not crooked but, on the 
contrary, made her living by her shapeliness. 

Phew, he couldn’t rinse away the memories of punch, tobacco 
and other poisonous fumes. 

The letter. He hardly liked to take it, because the crooked one 
had touched it with her eternally unwashed hands and black-edged 
nails. 

He thought he had seen the writing before, but could not re¬ 
member where. It was almost a copy-book hand. Yes, of 
course—his father had written like that; it had gradually become 
rather senile, but had always had something of the writing-master 
about it. He looked at the postmark. 

The letter was from home. His heart suddenly began to 
thump with fear. Annoyed at his silly nervousness, he forced 
his heart to cease throbbing before opening the letter, but his 
fingers still trembled as he tore the envelope. 

“Bakkebol School, June 7 th. 

“Mr. Jens Dahl, student of theology. 

“It has fallen to my mournful lot to inform you that your dear 
mother is no longer among the ranks of the living. The steadfast, 
self-sacrificing care with which she nursed your deceased father in 
his latter days exceeded her powers, and she was no longer the hale, 

9i 


92 The Philosopher’s Stone 

strong woman she wished to appear in her letters to you. She was 
so afraid that anxiety for her health might hinder you in your work. 
We, who saw her day by day, were well aware that the end was not 
far off, and yet we had hoped that she would have survived the 
summer, as she herself believed, looking forward to having you home 
in the vacation and, as she said, spending the last days of her life 
with you.—It was not to be. God called her to Himself on the night 
between Friday and Saturday, at three o’clock. Calmly and peace¬ 
fully she fell asleep in the name of the Lord. 

“We were thinking that the funeral should take place on Thursday, 
but we naturally leave it to you to make the final arrangement. 
Your old room here, in your old home, is ready to receive you. 

“May the Lord console you in your sad loss. 

“J. J. Hansen-Bro.” 

His heart almost ceased to beat as suddenly as it had begun 
to throb just before. Otherwise he felt nothing. The letter 
told him nothing. A few unreal sentences about “God called her 
to Himself” and “fell asleep in the name of the Lord” “on the 
night between Friday and Saturday, at three o’clock.” 

The night between Friday and Saturday, at three o’clock. He 
sank on to the sofa, as though struck by a blow that stunned 
him. His face was as white as chalk and his expression almost 
lifeless. 

On the night between Friday and Saturday, at three o’clock, 
his mother had died—and just at that hour he had been with- 

A sunbeam fell into the room with a perfectly meaningless 
warm smile and outlined the window on the floor. His eyes 
dwelt on the black lines of the window-frame around the patch 
of sunlight, and suddenly a memory arose in him. One day she 
had brought him in a slice of bread and cheese, and she had had 
such a sly look, because there happened to be a double layer of 
cheese on part of the slice. She stayed and watched him while 
he ate it. “So you got it down,” she said when he had finished; 
and she looked as though she too had managed to get it down. 

And now she was dead, on the night between Friday and Sat¬ 
urday, while he- He threw himself face downwards on the 

sofa. 

He had lain motionless for an hour, when he became aware of 
a severe pain in his hands and a helpless loneliness in his heart. 
He had been lying on his clasped hands and had driven the 
knuckles into each other. 




The Night Between 93 

He turned over on his side and saw the patch of sunlight on 
the floor. For the moment he associated it with the sunshine be¬ 
low the schoolroom window many years ago, and thought of the 
picture-book, the bound Sunday school papers, with a picture of 
a little boy lying in his bed, while his dead mother stands like a 
guardian angel by his pillow, watching over her little lad. In 
those days he believed that all dead mothers came at night to look 
after their children. Many a time when he awoke he had listened 
for her breath to assure himself that she was really alive and near 
him, and in his gratitude for this he had repeated the little verse 
she used to say, after she had said good night: “Softly sleep— 
Sweetly dream—The Lord you keep—Trust in Him.” 

The sofa he was lying on was a present from her. The little 
cushion under his head she had made herself. It had in it some¬ 
thing of the gentle security that belonged to her person. 

Weary with sorrow and tortured by conscience, his head buried 
itself deeper in the little cushion. The Sunday school picture of 
the dead mother standing by her child’s bed-side flickered before 
his consciousness, he clasped his still smarting hands and, as at 
last the tears began to trickle down his cheeks, he repeated softly 
and in his childhood’s voice, almost escaping from the present: 
“Softly sleep—Sweetly dream—The Lord you keep—Trust in 
Him.” 

With a vague idea of his mother’s presence, he dozed off like 
a little child that cries itself to sleep. 

When he awoke, the news had penetrated him with its dull, 
heavy calm. 

He got up and began to pack—slowly and laboriously, as though 
it took a lot of thinking to find out what had to go into the trunk. 
Now and then he lingered over something or other which re¬ 
minded him particularly of her, a handkerchief she had worked 
with his name, or a pair of socks he had seen in her hands the 
Christmas before, when she was darning them with the same 
expression of physical enjoyment with which she had once 
watched him eat the bread and cheese. 

He was interrupted by a knock at the door. The second of 
his three landladies, the “deaf” one, came in with her flurried hop, 
like a sparrow, and her shy grin. 

“Excuse me, Mr. Dahl—ho-ho—it’s your friend, Mr. Barnes— 
ho-ho—may he come in?” 

He hesitated for a moment and then nodded. 


94 The Philosopher’s Stone 

She hopped around: “That was all—ho-ho—I wanted to ask/' 
He saw her back view, flat and pendulous, as she hopped out of 
the door, and heard her say outside, with the chronic cold in her 
voice: “Yes—ho-ho—you may come in—ho-ho—I only wanted 
to ask first.” Then Barnes came in. 

“You’re packing,” he said. “Are you going away?” 

Dahl was standing with a waistcoat in his hand, his eyes fixed 
on the trunk. He turned to Barnes, still holding the waistcoat. 
“Yes,” he said, “my mother is dead.” 

Barnes did not answer a word. A shadow fell upon his face 
and his eyes dropped to the floor. Dahl turned again and packed 
the waistcoat. When he reached for the jacket he saw that Barnes 
had taken a seat. 

He sat motionless, looking before him. It was impossible to 
tell whether he had heard what Dahl said, or whether it had es¬ 
caped him, as any commonplace remark might have done. All 
the same, Dahl knew that Barnes was silently sensitive to all 
that was passing within him. 

“Can you understand, Barnes,” he said slowly, “that one’s 
mother can die? I don’t mean the death of the body, but that 
she can cease to exist. Somewhere or other she must be, don’t 
you think so? Only we can’t see her.” 

Barnes had raised his eyes to him; but there was nothing to 
be seen in them. They looked as if he had taken all the ex¬ 
pression out of them—his usual watchful, all-seeing look was 
turned within. As he sat there with the clear signs of a youthful 
vice, with his intelligence, as it were, laid aside for the moment, 
but yet with his face heightened by a strange, silent knowledge, 
he seemed something more—or something less—than human. 
With his leaden complexion, his heavy eyelids and clammy hands, 
he looked like some friendly gnome who had come out of his 
mound and waited mutely to hear if he could be of use to the man 
before him. Something about him showed that he knew all that 
was passing in the man’s mind. 

Dahl went on with his packing. But suddenly he dropped 
what he had in his hand and turned right round to face Barnes. 

Then he said, after a little hesitation: 

“Do you know where I was at the moment my mother died?” 

Barnes gave a look of ordinary inquiry, and Dahl answered: 

“I was drunk and sleeping with a woman.” 

After that he turned his back to his friend and went on packing. 


The Night Between 95 

“Didn’t you know your mother was ill?” asked Barnes. 

“No,” said Dahl, “I knew nothing.” He handed Barnes the 
schoolmaster’s letter. 

Barnes read it and put it down in silence. 

All at once, like an unhappy boy confiding in a schoolfellow, 
Dahl said: 

“Barnes—what if Mother saw me at that moment?” 

Barnes looked at him totally mystified. 

“They say,” said Dahl—and it seemed to Barnes that his face 
and voice were just the same as when they were both in the first 
class at the village school, “they say that at the moment of death 
a person visits those who are dearest to say a last farewell. And 
who else should Mother go to but me?” 

He hid his face in his hands. 

Barnes looked at him in pity. He shook his head almost im¬ 
perceptibly. 

His friend had given up his theological studies, entirely con¬ 
vinced of the meaninglessness of Christianity. He had not a 
thread left of all the web of dogma, not the slightest spark of hope 
of the immortality of the soul. And here he was, devoured by 
old village superstitions. 

Barnes got up and gave Dahl his clammy hand. 

“Good-bye,” he said, and his whole face showed that absence 
of indiscreet commiseration which, more than any other form of 
sympathy, wraps the heart in charity. 

Dahl nodded and knew his friend had felt his silent gratitude. 

Smiling like an eye drunk with sunshine lay the blue sound be¬ 
tween the green islands. The little toy steamer with the red band 
on its funnel glided gently towards the market town, which lay 
clustered about its church in a sunny, holiday peace. 

Dahl stood on deck looking beyond the town. A good two 
miles behind it lay Bakkebol School. The road with its willows 
lay hidden. 

There all the boys would be going into town on some pretext. 
When they met him they would grin with shamefaced joy, then 
look serious and sympathetic, because his mother was dead, and 
Holger Enke would gravely come away from the crowd and look 
at him with his big eyes, which had not nearly enough room for 
all the goodness that struggled in them—and then Jens would 
begin to cry. 


96 The Philosopher’s Stone 

Rubbish. Holger Enke was in prison, and the others were 
grown up and all had their work to attend to. . . . 

Sail-maker Berg stood in his accustomed place with his hands 
buried deep in his trouser pockets and his face closed, as usual, 
upon its unfathomable interior. 

Over there was Henriksen’s window. Now it was a potter’s. 

Just outside the town, where the road turned off to “The 
Wood,” he met Helen Urup, deeply sunk in her own thoughts. 
As she looked up and recognized him, a brief gleam was kindled 
in her eyes and sprang back like a little spark over all the years 
to her mother’s garden and Henriksen’s, and awakened the same 
memories in Dahl. Their steps became halting and uncertain, as 
though they thought of stopping to talk; then they both walked 
on with a polite greeting. 

He turned round, looked after her, and thought of Barnes. 

Farther on, the road with the willow trees turned up to Bak- 
kebol School. There was nobody to be seen; alone he reached 
the old road, and alone it received him. 

He broke off a willow rod and began to scrape off the green 
bark, while his feet reluctantly carried him homeward to the 
school. 

A dull burden hung upon him. He scraped slowly and with 
care, as though it was a piece of work that had to be well done, 
and he would not go home till it was finished. He made it last. 
So long as he had not seen her in death, it did not seem really 
true. 

At last the willow rod was shining white. He stood looking 
at it irresolutely, unable to remember what it was he wanted it 
for. 

After all, it didn’t matter, but in a strange way it seemed ur¬ 
gently important that he should remember. Once or twice it 
nearly came back to him, but was gone again before he could 
seize it. 

In irritation he swished the air with his rod—and dropped it 
in terror, just as if Holger Enke had really come through the gap 
in the hedge and a fat little flat-headed rustic were bellowing on 
the road. 

It was here, on this spot, that he had birched the pot-bellied 
little fellow after Lillebror’s death, and Holger had given him his 
knife, and he had gone home to his mother and told her what he 
had done and asked her forgiveness. 


The Night Between 97 

Now he was to go home to her again, and he had much to con¬ 
fess and to beg forgiveness for. 

Home! To kneel before her, to tell her all and beg forgive¬ 
ness ! 

There was the fence, grey and uneven with age, along which 
he used to slide his hand; the rounded cobble-stones of the yard, 
each with its face; Hansen-Bro and his wife, who were not given 
time to say their well thought-out words of consolation, but, in 
answer to a look in his face, opened the door of the room where 
the black coffin stood. 

He remembered that he was going to kneel and confess, but 
he did not do so. A boy had entered the room to beg his mother’s 
forgiveness, a young man stood looking in deep earnest, but coldly, 
at the body of a woman—the stiff crossed hands, the thin face, 
yellow as wax, whose expression he did not comprehend. The 
smile that had stiffened about her mouth, and that froze his heart, 
was something he did not know. 

A pair of tender, watchful eyes, a smile of mutual understand¬ 
ing, a look of painful joy about the brows—that was his mother’s 
face when she turned it to him, the only one he had seen, the one 
that was both hers and his; for now he saw that he had always 
regarded her as his property. 

But there was nothing left of what had been his. She had 
gone from him. The unfathomable smile he was now looking at, 
which would not disappear—that was private, that was hers alone. 

He looked at her own, last smile and seemed to hear a voice 
somewhere in the parish, a peasant woman’s voice, perhaps An- 
nine Clausen’s, saying “the parish clerk’s wife.” 

This casual phrase swept him aside, put him in his place as a 
child the clerk and his wife had had. And nobody protested. The 
clerk’s wife lay here with her private smile, which would tell him 
nothing. 

Ah, yes, she had been other things besides a mother. Child, 
schoolgirl, in love, married; she had lived the life of a human 
being, about which he knew but little. And this smile, the last 
she would give to him or to anyone else who came in, was neither 
happy nor unhappy, but uncannily mysterious. 

Twice he had stood by the bier of one of his nearest kin, but 
never had he been a prey to this pitiless, impersonal chill, which 
now froze the depths of his heart. 

Here, in this room, he had looked upon his dead father’s face. 


98 The Philosopher’s Stone 

It was the same he had always seen, a little smaller in death than 
in life, fallen away, as though admitting that it had not invented 
the art of printing, but otherwise the same. 

And Lillebror’s white marble face, which only looked as if 
he slept; as if at any moment he might open his eyes and rise 
like a bubble from their bottomless depths. Lillebror, who had 
only “gone home,” and who came back to give his fingers a last 
little pressure. 

But this face before him was as strange to him, and as impene¬ 
trably closed, as sail-maker Berg’s, which would never open to 
him. 

And so was his own when he left the room and went past 
Hansen-Bro and his wife, up to his bedroom. 

They stared at each other in bewilderment. 

“And it’s his own mother,” said Madam Bro; “and he hasn’t 
a word to say or a tear to shed.” 

“The man must be a freethinker,” said Hansen-Bro. His wife 
shuddered and found comfort in the thought that her husband 
was a member of the choir and a teacher of religion. 


XIX. Homeless 


T HE solemn chill dwelt in his heart and froze his senses. 

The sun shone unconcerned, the birds sang the whole 
summer day, but their twittering was only empty noise; 
the girls wept at his mother’s funeral, the sorrow in their faces 
seemed to him a meaningless grimace. What had she to do with 
them! The farmers squeezed his hand sympathetically, without 
knowing that their solemnity was due, not to the loss of his mother, 
but to an uncomfortable feeling that one day they themselves 
would die. Hansen-Bro and his wife positively had tears in 
their eyes and had not the heart to acknowledge their natural feel¬ 
ing of relief that she was dead and all the furniture had come to 
them. 

Of course it was theirs: Madam Bro had filled all the chairs 
with her broad person, and they had yielded and taken on her 
impress. It was no longer a home for him. Best say good-bye 
without delay. 

Before leaving he wanted to look out through the hole in the 
hazel hedge. He went down the path, which was trampled by 
Hansen-Bro’s big wooden shoes. Not even there was he reminded 
of home. He raised his eyes from the path in a profound long¬ 
ing for someone to be fond of; before him was the hole in the 
hedge, and he stopped and gazed, as through a telescope, over the 
country in the inexplicable certainty that somewhere within his 
vision was the one he longed for, and the very same for whose 
sake he had stood there from the first and looked for day after 
day—until he forgot what he was waiting for. 

He was on the point of finding who it was, only he could not 
yet see it clearly; but he was convinced it would come. 

He went in to Hansen-Bro and rented his old room for the 
summer. 

Day after day he sat in the hedge and waited in vain. At last 
he gave it up and wandered restlessly about all the roads of the 
parish. 

One afternoon he stopped outside Niels Peter’s and Martine’s 

99 


ioo The Philosopher’s Stone 

house, though he could not bring himself to go in; but Niels Peter 
had seen him from the window and came out, and so Martine’s 
coffee was not to be avoided. 

She already had three children and was expecting the fourth. 

“They come pretty quick while you’re young,” said Niels Peter. 

Dahl looked at Martine’s shapeless figure and thought she 
wouldn’t be “young” much longer. 

She still kept her clear, shrewd eyes, but the rest of her face 
bore marks of a natural weariness. She caught Dahl’s look and 
gave a smile of comprehension. 

“We can tell,” she said, “when we meet somebody who knew 
us before, that we have begun to go downhill. You needn’t say 
anything nice, because it is so. It begins the day we get married.” 

“You’re very encouraging about marriage,” Niels Peter in¬ 
terposed. 

“Well, bless me, it isn’t the fault of marriage ,* I’m quite pleased 
with mine. It’s life. It’s all over—or we can just as well say it 
begins—when we get married. Then we go about for a few years 
with one child in our arms and another one coming on, and have 
to look after the house and the garden and the man just the same, 
and before we know where we are, we’re so ugly that he can’t see 
any longer that we’re a woman, and so tired that we don’t care 
either.” 

She gave Niels Peter a slap and added: 

“Well, I’ve not got so far as that yet, but it isn’t such a terrible 
way off.” 

“You’ve always been a bit of a prophetess, Martine,” said Dahl. 

“Ah, but it doesn’t always come true,” declared Niels Peter. 
“Last time we saw you she prophesied that Tine would either 
marry a gentleman or be an old maid. And then she went and 
married Peter Murer.” 

“Is Tine married to Peter Murer?” 

Dahl was lost in thought. Martine looked at him a moment 
and said: 

“Aye, pretty near all the young men in the parish asked her, 
and then she took Peter Murer, because his hands were the 
whitest.” 

Her clear eyes dwelt again on Dahl’s face before she continued: 

“I’m not sure that Tine is really happy.—Ah, you look at me as 
if you wanted to say: Ts anybody happy?’ after what I said just 
now. But the rest of us, we know what we’re in for, and we 


Homeless ioi 

know it can’t be any different. Life is what it is. But Tine 
wanted life to be like it is in the novels. She used to read a lot 
of them at school. And then she could dream. I remember that 
time just after we’d been confirmed, when we used to amuse each 
other with our confidences. Tine could dream just like an author 
can write. Going on, one night after the other, with the contin¬ 
uation, like the stories that run in the paper. She looked forward 
to going to sleep simply for the dreams. And in the day-time she 
remembered them all. I shouldn’t be surprised if Tine still 
dreams every night and isn’t properly awake in the day-time.” 

“Oh, she’s awake right enough,” said Niels Peter, “for there 
isn’t a house so spick and span as hers, unless it’s your own.” 

“Yes, but Tine’s just like a sleep-walker,” Martine asserted. 
“She can do everything just as well as we can when we’re awake, 
but you pull her suddenly out of her dream and you’ll see, she’ll 
drop what she’s got in her hand with fright. 

“Here comes mother-in-law with a piece of news for us. I 
can see that by the way she’s running.” 

This was true enough. Annine came in, out of breath, scared 
and full of her story. 

“What is it, Mother?” said Martine. “What’s the matter?” 

“What is it ?” puffed Annine. “What is it ? Ah, you may well 
ask what it is!” 

She looked up with eyes that were quite dazed with trotting 
faster than her lungs could stand, caught sight of Dahl, broke off 
in a fright, and sank into a chair. 

But even if she had met the parson himself with a dean and a 
bishop, she couldn’t have held her tongue. 

“The Consul’s dead,” she said. 

“Oh,” said Niels Peter in the flippant tone suited to the rest 
of his sentence, which, however, he kept to himself—“has the 
devil taken him at last?” 

“Yes,” said Annine, still puffing and blowing. “The Consul’s 
dead. I’ve just come from there.” 

The last remark seemed to bring her a certain relief; she be¬ 
came a little calmer, as one who had done her duty. 

“I was in the house when he died—and the parson was there 
with the sacrament.” 

“Sacrament,” said Niels Peter, spitting out a quid; “that’s a 
damned sight too good for the old swine.” 

Annine looked at him flabbergasted. This expression gradually 


102 


The Philosopher’s Stone 

passed into one of transfiguration, while she did not take her eyes 
off him. She was obtaining forgiveness on his account. She 
closed her eyes, hurriedly thanked God, opened them again, and 
looked at Niels Peter with the expression of motherly joy which, 
since his marriage, she had taken away from him and given to his 
children. A good boy he had been, though, to be sure, he was con¬ 
ceived in sinful lust, but that trick of saying the right word at 
the right moment that he had from the tinman who had scattered 
her wits for five minutes that cattle-show evening and then gone 
off to America. She felt that he had been forgiven her, she need 
have no more remorse about him. 

“You say that, my son,” she said solemnly, “and strange it is 
that you, of all people, should say it to me, for it was the judgment 
of God that came from your mouth.” 

She collected herself a little and then went on with her story 
in a calmer tone. Her great terror had left her, and she was filled 
with thankful and righteous joy over the providence which re¬ 
wards, punishes and forgives according to our deserts. 

“Pd taken some eggs there,” she said, “and then the cook says 
to me that the Consul’s at the last gasp. ‘Lord!’ says I. ‘Is it 
so near?’ ‘Yes,’ says she, ‘they’re expecting it every minute. 
The parson’s upstairs with the sacrament.’ ‘Then I’ll sit down 
for a bit,’ says I, for I thought it would be too annoying if it 
should happen just after I’d come out of the house, ‘since I’m here 
anyway.’ And so we sit and wait. But that was more than we 
could stand, sitting there waiting and keeping quiet, and so the 
cook says: ‘Where’s the parlour-maid got to ?’ for she’d gone up 
a long time ago with candles for the sacrament, and then she 
stole off in her stocking-feet and came back and whispered that 
they’d taken the key out of the door, so we could peep in, and it 
was awful, and she was stealing off again, but I got hold of her 
skirt and said: ‘Let me have a look; you’ll hear it all from the 
parlour-maid, but I’ve got to go.’ And I put my eye to the key¬ 
hole and I saw it all, for the door was just where it should be. 

“The parson had just got to where he shows the chalice to the 
sick man—he’d got as far as that when the cook was looking, but 
he hadn’t got any further yet, because the Consul had begun to 
chuckle, and presently he was laughing out loud. Just as I got 
there he started to talk. But what he said I couldn’t repeat, not 
when there are men in the room. He lay there laughing and look¬ 
ing up into the air,'and we could tell from what he said that it was 


Homeless 103 

women he saw, and they were stark staring naked all over. And 
the Consul he laughed and said things I can’t repeat, and tried 
to grab at them with his fingers. 

“But then all at once his face went stiff with fright, and he 
tried to duck under the bed-clothes, and his throat said ‘krak— 
rak-rak,’ just as if somebody was strangling him. 

“And I felt my legs giving way under me, and I broke out all 
in a sweat like a fever, for when I saw his face and heard that 
‘krak—rak-rak’ I knew it was the Evil One himself that had 
fetched him, and the sure sign of it was that the chalice that the 
parson had in his hand slopped over and spilled some of the wine, 
for all the world as if somebody had given it a kick as he went 
past. 

“I didn’t see any more than that, because the cook wanted to 
have a turn. But I’m going to the funeral, and if after that the 
parson makes a nice speech over him because of the money— 
and they’ll pay him well—why, then I’ll never believe any more. 

“But, goodness me, now I come to think of it—Kirsten Smeds 
was in service there, when the Consul was younger, and gave 
notice because he wouldn’t leave her alone. I’ll have to tell her 
about his end. Ah, well, what a terrible thing death is, to be 
sure, when we’re not prepared for it!” 

Annine picked up her skirts and ran. 

She was permitted to retain her faith. The parson had been 
so shocked by the affair of the sacrament that he begged to be 
excused the ceremony at the grave-side and asked his nearest col¬ 
league to officiate instead. 

Thus it was that Pastor Barnes was once more invited to preach 
over a corpse in another parish, as had so often happened in the 
days of his glory. After an interview with his colleague he said 
yes. 

And it turned out that he stirred the congregation more power¬ 
fully than ever before. 

When the first hymn had been sung he advanced to the coffin 
and, without any introductory words, said the Lord’s Prayer. 
Then, without adding a single word, he returned to his place and 
sat down. 

The effect was such that not one of the mourners was able to 
join in the final hymn, the organ played it through alone, and the 
doctor saved the situation by giving the bearers a sign to move 
off with the coffin. 


104 The Philosopher’s Stone 

“Cad,” said the Consul’s son when he got home. “He shall 
be paid by the line. And the Lord’s Prayer is gratis.” 

Barnes didn’t get a penny for officiating, but he had gained the 
respect of the town, and in his own parish they were proud of 
him. 


XX. Disappointments 

D AHL was on his way home from his daily walk. He 
preferred to take it in the middle of the day, when men 
and beasts were asleep and the whole parish reposed 
in the calm of a great churchyard; and then he went where his 
legs might carry him, with a heavy, deathlike oppression at his 
heart. 

The sound of a saw broke the stillness as he passed Claus 
Jorgen's farm. It was Hans Olsen at work in the carpenter's 
shed. Dahl went and spoke to him. 

“So you're working in your dinner-time?" 

Hans Olsen smiled. 

“It's just a little 'cottage industry.' I sell it and get quite a 
good price." 

“And what about your midday sleep?" 

“Well, you know—we never took a sleep at this time when we 
were at school. We used to play instead." Hans Olsen looked 
at his work, as if it was still play to him. 

He had not changed in the least. There were the same soft, 
fair curls about his forehead and temples, the same confiding 
smile, which looked like another bright, innocent curl. Imper¬ 
ceptibly his body and limbs had grown to manhood, while re¬ 
taining the gentle roundness of his childish years. His head was 
placed so harmoniously upon his shoulders that it was impossible 
to imagine it placed otherwise, and his eyes looked straight at 
their object, frankly and with a curious discretion, as though it 
was out of the question that they should stray to what did not 
concern them. There was something remarkable about Hans 
Olsen, an air of being definitely protected, which had an almost 
irritating effect on Dahl and made him maliciously inclined to 
break in upon this blue-eyed peace. He began to talk about a 
man who had got drunk at the inn. 

Hans Olsen smiled good-naturedly: “Well, they do some¬ 
times." 

And then there was an unmarried couple that had had children. 

105 


106 The Philosopher’s Stone 

The same imperturbable, uncensoring smile: “We hear of such 
things now and then.” 

And Claus Jorgen had been watering his milk as usual ?. A 
quiet little shake of the head over the queer things people might 
take into their heads to do. 

Oh, yes, Hans Olsen had heard all about life’s temptations, but 
they were as far away from him as America. 

“Do you always work at this sort of thing in your spare time?” 
Dahl asked. 

“Generally. It amuses me—and then, you see, it pays better 
than spending money. And there’s a little house I’ve got my 
eye on.” 

“I see, there’s marriage in the wind?” 

Hans Olsen smiled his little curly smile. 

“Well, we’re engaged, so marriage is the next thing.” 

It was obviously a thing one grew into, just like learning one’s 
catechism, with confirmation as the natural result. 

“So you’ve never joined in a spree over at the inn?” 

Hans Olsen looked into the blue sky. 

“Well, no, I can’t exactly say I have.” 

His tone was placid, without a sign of dissociating himself 
from those who did go on the spree. Dahl was curious to know 
whether he understood their jollity. 

Oh, yes, it was easy enough to understand, “for what are young 
fellows to do in warm weather but let of! the steam? If they’re 
alone they must make a noise now and then. Only I’ve never 
felt the want of that, because we’ve always been two, Ellen and 
I. Either we had each other’s company or if we were alone we 
were thinking of each other. And then it’s so simple just to— 
liver 

Dahl went home full of an ugly ill will. He regarded Hans 
Olsen with the bitter feelings of a rejected rival, though it was 
scarcely possible to imagine any ground of contention between 
them. He was overwhelmed, but without humility, by a sense 
of his own smallness, and tried to reassert his superiority by re¬ 
flecting that Hans Olsen was not particularly clever, but was at 
once put out by an inner voice which asserted convincingly that 
there wasn’t a horse-dealer who would ever get the better of Hans. 

No, that was sure. But why? He could imagine the far 
brighter Niels Peter, or any other of his old schoolfellows being 
taken in, but not Hans. He couldn’t find a reason, but so it was. 


Disappointments 107 

So he made up his mind to sweep Hans Olsen out of his 
thought as something altogether too unimportant. But one thing 
would not go: a little fair curl on Hans Olsen’s left temple; he 
continued to see it, and it aroused a feeling of dragging melan¬ 
choly and bitter jealousy, as inexplicable as it was profound. 

Later in the afternoon he stood dreaming by the old playground. 
He was roused by the slow beat of horses’ hoofs and heavy cart¬ 
wheels grinding the gravel of the road. A young countryman 
lolled in the driver’s seat with the lethargy of routine. He glared 
sleepily at Dahl and a slow twitching of his face showed that he 
had recognized him. Dahl approached the cart. Was it, or was 
it not, Kristian Mogensen? 

Yes, it must be Kristian Mogensen with a K, who always had 
flies crawling on his back, because he was such a nice boy that even 
the flies knew it. 

Then there came a drawling “Good day.” What had become 
of the hushed, confidential tone of his voice? Where was the 
kindly brightness of his eye? Gone out for want of something 
to look forward to, as a lamp goes out for want of oxygen! There 
was not a trace of soul left in his face, nor in his broad, lifeless 
back—not so much as a single fly was to be seen on it. Kristian 
was finished, even before he had arrived at marriage, which ac¬ 
cording to Martine took the colour out of life. 

How was it with Tine? A bitter craving for another disap¬ 
pointment in her case led his steps in the direction of Peter 
Murer’s house. 

As he came near he was surprised by a nervous fear of be¬ 
ing seen, just as though he were still looking for her for forbidden 
reasons; he felt convinced that he would not dare to go in; even 
the memory of his dissolute life in Copenhagen could not over¬ 
come this old anxiety. 

But when he saw Peter Murer standing by the garden gate, it 
passed off completely. She was married to that man there! The 
thought gave relief like hearty laughter. There were miles be¬ 
tween him and her. He engaged unconcernedly in conversation 
with Peter. 

Without thinking, he accepted the invitation to come in and have 
supper with Peter’s wife. 

Peter called Tine: 

“Here’s an old acquaintance, a gentleman, but not too much of 
a gentleman to take a bit of bread with us.” 


108 The Philosopher’s Stone 

Tine came. There she was. He saw her for the first time 
since that evening in the hay. There she was. The same dark 
eyes with the long black lashes; he saw, nay, he felt her wonder¬ 
fully soft mouth and the magic of her arms about his neck. He 
knew that this would always be the standard by which he would 
measure the women he might meet hereafter, whatever their 
position or culture. 

Tine’s pupils grew wide, so that her eyes were quite black be¬ 
fore she dropped them to the ground. It seemed to Dahl that 
the path became alive under her gaze. Suddenly he heard Peter’s 
voice: 

“You two look as if you were bashful! Have you forgotten 
that you went to school together?” 

“Now I’ll get supper ready,” said Tine, and went into the 
house. 

It was the same walk, a natural, swaying dance, which he had 
watched one day with Christian Barnes. 

As she brought in the supper he saw that something matronly 
had come over her, but it made her none the less attractive to 
men. 

Peter talked, and she answered gently and kindly, but still 
as though most of her thoughts were wandering elsewhere. 

A sleep-walker, Martine had called her. 

Now and then she looked searchingly at Dahl, and when she 
did so it seemed that she lingeringly brought all her consciousness 
to bear. Her gaze gave him a feeling of maturity and experience 
of the world. 

“Will you pass me the salt?” asked Peter. 

She stretched her arm mechanically without taking her eyes off 
Dahl, but as she turned to Peter and her eyes passed to him, they 
showed a startled look, as though she had not been quite aware 
that he was present. The salt-cellar fell from her hand and her 
face showed confusion. 

“You’ll be crying before night,” said Peter. “You’ve spilt the 
salt.” 

He leaned over and picked up the salt-cellar. 

Tine did not know which way to look. “I think there’s one 
of the children crying,” she said, and left the room. 

“Ah, women have their hands full, when once they’ve got chil¬ 
dren,” said Peter. 


Disappointments 109 

As she left the room Dahl saw by her back that Martinet 
view of marriage was also to a certain extent true of Tine. 

She did not come back until Peter called her in to say good¬ 
bye. All three went together to the gate. 

“Look in again some time when you’re passing,” said Peter. 
“You won’t find me, though; I shall be away on a building-job 
at the other end of the island. But Tine always has a bit of 
bread and a drop of beer, and it’ll do her good to have a little 
chat.” 

Dahl looked inquiringly at her. She stood right in front of 
him in the moonlight as once before, with the same mournfully 
serious “No” in her deep eyes. But she was not so firm as then. 
Her pupils grew big and black, and though she stood motionless 
he had a notion that she recoiled and sank before him. A smile 
rose within him, but did not reach his lips, for the fair curl on 
Hans Olsen’s left temple appeared with sudden irrelevancy in 
the air between them and again called forth the feeling of drag¬ 
ging melancholy and bitter, incomprehensible jealousy in his heart. 
He submitted sadly to the feeble prayer in Tine’s eyes and said: 

“I don’t suppose I shall come any more; I’m going away soon.” 


XXL The Toy 

D AHL sat in the hazel hedge and Hansen-Bro was dig¬ 
ging in the garden. Suddenly he bent down and picked 
up something, smiled with his head on one side, and went 
towards the hedge. Dahl was looking down; the plump legs 
were advancing with intrusive familiarity. He did not want a 
talk and left the hedge to get away from him. Hansen-Bro caught 
him nevertheless. 

“I have found something,” he said, “which I am inclined to 
think must have been a toy of yours once.” He held out what 
he had found. 

Dahl gave a start and made a dash for the house, but felt, 
as in a nightmare, that his feet were like lead and held him to 
the spot. He looked up at Hansen-Bro, who did not seem to 
have heard what he shouted. Then the heaviness spread from 
his feet through his whole body, and he knew that he had neither 
moved from the spot nor shouted. It had all happened within 
him; he had cried out in jubilation: “Here it is!” and had run 
towards the house to give it to Lillebror, who was lying ill in 
bed and wanted to have his spade. 

He stood with it in his hand. 

“Yes, it is mine,” he said quietly to Hansen-Bro; “that is-” 

He broke off and walked slowly away; he could not have said “It 
is my brother’s” without bringing the tears to his eyes. 

As he turned to thank Hansen-Bro he suddenly saw again 
the little fair curl on Hans Olsen’s left temple, but now it was 
not Hans Olsen’s, it was Lillebror’s golden curl, and in a moment 
the whole of the little face was alive before him with its bottom¬ 
less eyes. Then he could no longer hold back his tears; they ran 
down his cheeks as he went to the hedge and sat in it. 

Hansen-Bro went indoors. “He’s an egoist,” he said to his 
wife. “At his mother’s funeral he hadn’t a tear, but as soon as 
he saw one of his own old toys, he cried.” 

Dahl sat a long while in the hazel hedge, humiliated to the 
depths of his being. He understood now the dragging melan- 

no 



The Toy hi 

choly, like home-sickness, and the bitter jealousy he had felt in 
the presence of Hans Olsen. That honest, untainted fellow lived, 
without knowing it, in close touch with the world of Lillebror 
and the language of heaven. 

When he rose from his “chair” in the hedge, there rose at 
the same time from the depths of his being a firm resolution, the 
full implication of which was not yet clear to him: from now 
on he would have but one aim—to regain his lost paradise, for 
he knew that there alone was it possible for him to live at peace 
with himself. 

But he would get away from this home, which was no longer 
his. 

With the little rusty spade in his hand, he went across the 
playground and stopped in front of the closed elder. It was 
Tine he had been running after that Sunday, when he lost his 
hat and saw that the elder no longer stood open. 

Tine! He did not know why, but to her and none of the 
others he would go before he left. He would say good-bye to her; 
to her, who without wishing him any ill had enticed him out 
of his childhood’s paradise. 

She was standing by the garden-gate, looking far away along 
the road, as her habit was when she had time to spare. 

She saw him in the distance, coming nearer and nearer. The 
ground swayed beneath her, so that she had to hold on to the 
gate. She fancied he was walking inevitably towards her, bear¬ 
ing her fate, and she felt that, whether he came to her in cold¬ 
ness or in warmth, he brought sorrow with him. 

Then he stopped and looked at her a long while without saying 
anything. But in the silence between them she heard more than 
at the moment she was capable of understanding, more than she 
would be able for many years to translate into thoughts. 

She stood with bowed head; at last she slowly raised the 
gentle eyes with their long dark lashes to him and asked, 
since she dared not prolong the silence, whether he would not 
come in. 

He shook his head. 

“I have only come to say good-bye. I’m leaving to-morrow.— 
I hope you will be well and happy.” 

“Then perhaps we shan’t see you any more?” she said. Her 
voice died away softly, like the last note on a delicate instrument. 

“No,” he said, “I shall not come here any more. Good-bye.” 


1 12 The Philosopher’s Stone 

“Good-” No more came, not even a whisper. But she 

looked at him in a brief, bright gleam, which dazzled her own 
eyes so that she had to shut them—a brief gleam of smarting 
misery, which was smothered and hidden in darkness. 

He walked quickly away. She had looked at him like a girl 
who would gladly live, but who knows she is to die and feels it 
is better so. 

At the crossroads he turned and looked back. 

She was still standing at the gate. Her head was bowed, she 
was looking at the ground, her hands hung listlessly over the 
gate. She looked like one alone in the world. 

For an instant it was as though his consciousness was trans¬ 
ferred to the listless, strangely relaxed figure yonder: he became 
aware that she was glad she would see him no more, but that she 
was weeping over it. 

Suddenly she straightened herself, as though someone had 
touched a hidden spring which concentrated her whole being on 
one object. 

Her two children had come out, and the little one had tumbled 
down the steps. 

When Dahl reached the playground again, he stopped and felt 
in his pocket. He took out the little spade and stood looking 
at it for a moment. Then he went into the churchyard. 

There lay the three graves, his mother’s new and high, his 
father’s sunken, and Lillebror’s which had become a little 
flower-bed. 

He carefully parted the flowers and stuck the spade deep into 
the ground. 

Then he went over to the school, paid for his room, and an¬ 
nounced that he would leave the following day. 



XXII. A Vision 


E ARLY next morning Dahl went out into the garden to 
look through the hedge for the last time. 

Kristen the sexton was pottering about with a wheel¬ 
barrow. 


‘‘Well, you’re going to leave us?” he said. 

“Yes,” said Dahl, looking at the old pipe which dangled from 
Kristen’s toothless mouth. It was the very same he had played 
with when it was new. Now all its glory was gone. 

“You can’t see God Almighty and heaven and earth in the lid 
of your pipe now, Kristen,” he said. 

Kristen laughed: “Fancy you remembering that! It was the 
very day your little brother came into the world. Aye, that it 
was. No, there’s no shine left in that pipe-lid, it don’t reflect 
anything now. It’s gathered the dirt of years.” 

Dahl went back to the hedge. Reflect! Was not that just 
the word? We reflect the world according to our brightness. 
Our eye sees heaven or hell or merely the green earth, according 
to our disposition. What would it be that his mind would re¬ 
flect at the last? 

He stood on the bank with his hand on a hazel-branch. The 
question stuck; he stood musing over it. He was not thinking; 
deep within him lay a weary, patient expectation. He was 
scarcely conscious of anything else, had no idea of the passage 
of time. 

All at once the bank seemed unusually high, and he had a 
feeling that he was holding on to the hazel-branch because he 
was afraid of falling into the ditch. His legs seemed very small 


and short. 

At that moment he remembered why he was standing there. 
He was waiting, tired of it but yet patient. 

For it was the day after the fete in “Fredeskov.” He was 
waiting here, just as he had done the first time. He clearly 
remembered the little girl in the pink frock, with the packet 
of sweets and the eyes that you could go on looking into. 

113 


114 The Philosopher’s Stone 

Now he knew her. Every feature was there, the eyes and 
all that he had seen so often in school without knowing that they 
were what he was waiting for. 

It was Tine! 

That was how she looked the first time he saw her. 

Tine! 

Even then. 

As he stood there he “went off,” sinking, as it were, deeper 
and deeper into himself, while a question seemed to bore its 
way into him—was Tine in some insoluble way bound up with his 
life? 

His thoughts stood still, but he could feel how the question 
went on boring its way deeper and deeper in. . . . 

He gave a start. There had been a sharp flash, as though 
a bomb had burst just in front of him. Within the flash he saw 
much more than he was able to retain. For he saw there his 
whole life to the very end. 

He could not keep hold of the details. 

Only this: that in a fanatical search for the Philosopher’s 
Stone he entered a life which was fantastically rich in inner 
experience. 

But what were they? He had seen them. Now they were 
gone. 

He remembered none but the very last: a green plain—a 
woman in a pink garment—she beckoned—he stepped down on 
to the plain—all became dark. 

But the woman, it seemed to him, who stood at the end of 
his life, was Tine. 

He stood still, looking out through the hedge for something 
which seemed already decided. Something inevitable. 

Annine Clausen came trotting past, called out “Good day,” 
got no answer, ran on to Kirsten Per Smeds’, and said: 

“Now isn’t it a queer thing? Here I come past the hedge 
by the school, and there stands the clerk’s son just as he used 
to, looking past me with eyes with no bottom to them, just as 
he did when he was a little new-born baby and I said to his 
mother: ‘What can a little chap like that be looking at?’ I said. 
Just the same as that his eyes looked now, you’d think the soul 
didn’t grow any older. Oh, well, oh, well, what a queer thing 
life is, to be sure!” 

A good hour later Dahl walked across the square in the market 


A Vision 115 

town, on his way to the harbour. Sail-maker Berg stood out¬ 
side his door with his hands in his trouser pockets. 

That was the man he had always wished he could get to 
“stand open,” that he might see what he had got out of sailing 
all round the “closed” world and seeing everything there was. 

Dahl was truly a visionary to-day. Berg stood open, and 
indeed there was nothing in the world to conceal. He was no 
more alive than Frederik VII, except that he could spit and 
twitch his eyes. 

Dahl had come to town too soon; there was half an hour 
before the steamer left. He went into the hotel for a cup of 
coffee. As he came out he startled a couple, who separated 
hastily in the corridor. 

They were the chambermaid of the hotel and young Consul 
XJrup, Helen’s husband. 

That was his last impression of home. 






* 






* 










Book II 

















XXIII. Nanna Bang 

M ISS NANNA BANG sat in her room, which was cosy 
as a warm little nest. Her brown eyes gazed into 
space, as though they had a favour to ask of somebody. 
A moment before, the air had been so thronged with thoughts 
that none of them could really reach her. Now there was not a 
single one; they were all gone, but not before each had laid 
its little burden upon her bosom, and their weight now made 
her breathing difficult. 

She rose and went to the piano to play herself free, glanced 
at the pieces that lay there, and tossed them aside. The revue 
song, that was too insipid. Underneath that, something she knew 
too well, and it was too sad. But there was “La brune Therese”! 
No, that was too gay. 

She went from the piano to the writing-table. There was 
her father’s inkstand, which she was usually so fond of. She 
dropped her eyes as though it had hurt them and turned away, 
looked at herself in her mother’s toilet mirror, a little shiver 
twitched her shoulders, and she went to the window and looked 
out. 

The quiet old street lay dark and lifeless. Close by were the 
lights and crowds of Ostergade, but they could not be seen. It 
was like life, which one knew was going on somewhere round 
the corner. 

The quiet street seemed even quieter, and the room itself was 
full of the defunct peace of eternity, like the choir of a church. 

She had a feeling that she had just come home to her parents, 
after seeing a girl friend to a ball which she herself was not al¬ 
lowed to go to. 

In a little niche, so arranged as not to attract the attention 
of strangers, stood the crucifix from her home. She had hung 
her rosary about it. A little cloth could be drawn before it, 
in case anybody came who need not know that she was a Catholic. 

She sat down and looked at the crucifix, because she had nothing 
else to occupy her. And since her thoughts were unoccupied, 


120 The Philosopher’s Stone 

the crucifix was free to express itself as it pleased; and thus 
it was that, as in her childhood, it seemed to her to be a living, 
protecting being. It led her eyes round about the cosy little 
nest she had made with all the things from home. There stood 
the great inkstand; she went and put it straight and could not 
help smiling, because she thought it had a look of fatherly 
approbation. 

The smile made her want to look at her face, and as she 
stood before the mirror she caught herself in a favourite gesture 
of her mother’s, putting her hand up to her hair. 

Then tears came into her eyes. She sat down in the middle 
of the room and was lonely. There was too much home in her 
room; she longed to talk herself away from it. 

There was the student who lived in the next room; he had come 
back to town after his mother’s funeral, but he had gone out 
without looking in for his usual cup of tea. 

It was easier for the other girls in the shop, who had not 
known a cultivated home. They married, for they were not so 
difficult to please, and those who did not marry, amused them¬ 
selves. 

She felt her genteel poverty so much in comparing herself 
with them—she with her languages and her music. 

But they knew what life was. And they got off quite cheaply 
into the bargain. 

And they had known life ever since they came into it. They 
had been brought up with every liberty. Well, but she was 
thankful for having been screened in a good home and for her 
memories. 

But here she was, shut in with her twenty-eight years and 
her one grey hair, which she had thrown into the stove. 

Here she sat among all the nice things from her old home, 
which formed a ring about her and closed her in—just as though 
her parents, even when dead, would hold her back from any 
participation in “life”! In a few years she would have run to 
seed as an old maid. 

The scornful words, which she herself had so often used 
with a girls flippant superiority, drove her from her chair. 

Then she found she had tears in her eyes, and went and opened 
the window. The summer air was mild and warm; she leaned 
out and let it caress her cheeks and tickle them with her hair. 


121 


Nanna Bang 

She drew herself up with a start and closed the window. 
With a defiant toss of the head, she broke through the confining 
ring of the old furniture, put on her most striking hat, and 
looked in the glass. She could see that the face confronting 
her was well worth noticing. 

And now she would go out into the crowd, where no doubt 
she would meet somebody or other she knew. Or what harm 
was there in meeting somebody she didn't know and taking a 
stroll—perhaps in Tivoli? At all events, there would be a little 
excitement, a little adventure in that. Her hands were a trifle 
feverish as she pushed in the hatpin. Her face in the glass 
was already replying to some gentlemanly man who asked if 
he might walk a little way with her. 

She gave a little, short laugh: “I believe I’m out of my 
senses!” But she continued to nurse the thrilling idea, until her 
cheeks grew hot. 

Then she was anxious lest she might not be able to break 
off at the right moment—but the girls in the shop always 
managed to come safely out of their adventures. She looked 
round the room and felt that her decision was taken already. 

It never occurred to her that the whole thing might end in an 
ordinary evening stroll from Kongens Nytorv to Raadhusplads, 
without anybody thinking of addressing the pretty little lady 
with the well-bred look. 

With bright, shining eyes she walked as in a dream through 
the main streets. Conscious of her wicked purpose, she dared 
not look at a single one of the faces she met. 

She reached Raadhusplads unmolested and went on without 
feeling disappointment. She had a notion that her adventure 
was waiting for her in the glare and crowd outside Tivoli, for 
good or evil. With gleaming eyes which took in nothing, she 
approached the red gates. 

It gave her a thrill all through, right down to her knees, when 
she felt an arm thrust into hers and heard a man’s voice say: 
“Shall we take a turn inside?” 

Her crucifix, her furniture at home swirled before her eyes. 
She had a foggy feeling that the face that smiled at her out of 
all the flickering glare was well known to her; it had something 
to do with the furniture and the crucifix—why, of course, it 
was the student in the next room, who used to come in for tea— 


122 The Philosopher’s Stone 

and tears came into her eyes, because she was not alone, and 
she laughed, because she had been so foolish, and went on laugh¬ 
ing, like a regular little attack of hysterics. 

When she had finished laughing she turned serious, good and 
a trifle solemn, and asked whether it wouldn’t be better to go home 
for a cosy cup of tea. 

Yes, after all Dahl would prefer that to Tivoli. 

Soon after, they were back in her room. She went to the 
crucifix and moved it a little forward, thinking it had got too 
far back in its niche. Then she went out and made tea. 

While they drank it she told him the story of her fallen sister, 
dwelt on all she had done for her, and asked if he did not agree 
that she could not receive her sister when anyone was there. 

“Oh, yes, I suppose so,” said Dahl with hesitation. 

“You’re like Father!” she exclaimed. “Yes, you are, just now, 
when you really understand quite well and yet won’t agree. You 
think it would be better if I let her come?” 

“I think the people who would refuse to know you because 
of that sister are not worth knowing,” he said. 

“We—ell,” she objected, “it’s easy for you to say that, but 
what friends should I have left? I have hardly any as it is, 
and if people get bored they stay away.” 

She went to the piano and played “La brune Therlse.” 

He sat smoking a cigar. She laughed. 

“How you do smoke!” she said. “This room will have an 
awful smell of men.” 

He watched the smile spreading over her lips, and fell into a 
reverie. Without his understanding why Martine’s words about 
the Vissingrod miller’s man recurred to him. He looked at her. 

“Take those eyes away,” she said, laughing. 

There it was again, that feminine, powerless, reluctant and 
yielding look. He continued to look at her, and the longer he 
looked, the more self-surrender there was in her laugh. 

Then it came upon him, without any conscious intention; 
impelled by an irresistible delight in his power, he went over to 
her, and without taking his eyes off her, without saying a word, 
began to undress her. 

She looked into his eyes in dismay, made a deprecating 
gesture, but unavailingly; her lips swelled in a voluptuous smile, 
her eyes closed, and she turned pale as in a swoon. 

Then, a little scared, he came to his senses. Of course he 


Nanna Bang 123 

intended her no harm. But he could not leave her like that. 

He carefully undressed the fainting woman, carried her to 
the bed, drew the coverlet over her, kissed her hair, and went 
to his own room. 

When the door had really closed behind him, she opened her 
eyes and fixed them upon it. 

And then she thought she was so glad, because he was so 
good, and then the tears began to trickle and went trickling, until 
there was no longer a need for them, because she had sorrow¬ 
fully fallen asleep. 

Dahl stood in his own room looking into the street, in the 
belief that he had overcome a temptation. 


XXIV. Mother and Daughter 

‘T’ O,” said Barnes, “no, I don’t think so. After all you 
I have told me, I believe you ought to stick to the 
1 theological faculty.—What money have you got?” 

“What I have inherited will last about ten years, if I’m not 
extravagant,” Dahl answered. 

“Then you’ll be able to read at leisure and follow your own 
interests without having to chase round after a degree.—And 
is there any other subject that specially attracts you?” 

Dahl shook his head. 

“Well, then, in your place I should stick to theology. It 
offers lots of interesting side-tracks, and perhaps on one of them 
you’ll find just what you want. If I were not already well on 
the way to an M.A. in English, and if it were not for my holding 
a scholarship, which would make them look down their noses 
if I dropped what I’d been doing, and, last but not least, if 
I hadn’t to think of making my living, I should myself change 
over to the stupid old theological faculty. As things are, I 
have to be content with following my passion on the sly, like 
a poacher.” 

“Poacher?” Dahl repeated. “Why, what are you hunting?” 

“I’m on the track of the religious feeling.” 

Dahl looked at him in surprise. “I thought you ^ere an un¬ 
believer.” 

“The one doesn’t exclude the other.” 

“Religion-” Dahl began, but Barnes interrupted him: 

“Oblige me by not confusing religion with the religious feel¬ 
ing, and further by remembering that Christianity is not the only 
form of religion on this earth—and certainly won’t be the last. 
The religious feeling seems to be just as ineradicable as the in¬ 
stincts of self-preservation and propagation; it has always created 
and will continue to create religions. And Heaven only knows 
to what it might lead mankind if it were not so shamefully mal¬ 
treated in churches and temples.” 

“Churches and temples?” said Dahl. “You seem to think that 

the religious feeling in Christianity and outside it-” 

124 



Mother and Daughter 125 

Barnes interrupted him again: 

“There is only one religious feeling, my boy, and consequently 
in reality only one religion.” 

“But you insisted just now that there were many-” 

“Yes—many forms of religion. You can find them in Asia, 
Africa, Europe, in every part of the world, and you can find them 
in all ages, the forms of religion. And the religious historians 
can dissect and annotate and classify them; that’s neither here nor 
there. These forms are only dead remains of the life that created 
them, sloughs that the snake has cast, showing that it once lived 
in them, but the snake itself, the religious feeling, is forgotten 
by these learned gentlemen in their interest for the slough. It is 
the snake itself that interests me.” 

“And you think there is only one snake ?” asked Dahl. 

“Ye—es,” said Barnes, “but of course it looks rather different 
according to its age and development. May I explain in a few 
words what my ideas are about religious feeling, religion and 
churches ?” 

Dahl nodded, and Barnes went ahead: 

“Let us imagine a primitive people. Its feelings are concerned 
with certain definite things, which it either wants or cannot abide; 
its development consists in the struggle for or against these things. 
But besides these feelings there exists an uneasy, uncertain sense 
of a relation to something unknown, of superior power, which 
can influence man and which man in certain cases can himself 
influence; the indescribable something which for want of better 
knowledge, man takes to be a spirit, a god or a devil, or all three 
together. In some way or other an atonement has to be brought 
about between this something and man. Here you have, the 
baby snake, the religious feeling in its cradle. 

“Let us now imagine an individual entirely governed and in¬ 
spired by this feeling, in such a way that through him it mani¬ 
fests itself in definite actions, because he is incapable of acting 
otherwise; then you have in him the religious genius of the tribe, 
and he has the influence of genius on his fellows. 

“Let us further suppose that he performs one of his remarkable, 
suggestive acts just as a storm happens to cease, or a hostile army 
takes to flight; then it will be quite natural to connect these things 
and to conclude that the man of the gods has power over the 
gods. This provides food for the religious feeling of the mob. 
^ “After him comes his disciple and rehearses the story: on such 


126 The Philosopher’s Stone 

and such an occasion the man of the gods did this and that, and 
it had its effect; let us do likewise. This disciple is the founder 
of the religion of the tribe. So now we have the religion. After 
the disciples come the priests, who carefully note down all the 
disciples have taught them, and now the saying runs: on such and 
such an occasion the man of the gods did this and that; this 
avails us, and he who does not believe it and do likewise shall 
be thrashed. There we have the church. 

“But then the church is a thing fixed and finished once for all ; 
the religious feeling is a living, growing life, and one fine day 
the church becomes too narrow, the snake has the choice of 
crawling out of its slough or being strangled in it. At that mo¬ 
ment appear the prophets, who don’t always get on well with 
the priests, even though the priests of later times gather the de¬ 
ceased prophets into the church and thus extend it. 

“But, as I say, it’s the religious feeling I’m hunting, not its cast 
slough, which at the most can only help me to follow its trail. 

“From these cast-off clothes I can see that the religious feeling 
in its origin is just as base and foul as any other human feel¬ 
ing. In the beginning it is difficult to find any difference be¬ 
tween a god and a devil. Man’s notion of ‘god’ furnishes a 
good standard for the quality of his religious feeling. And for a 
good part of the way it turns out to be a pretty tainted sort of 
feeling, and the ‘gods’ at their best a set of jealous devils. 

“Now let me take a jump forward to vindictive old Jehovah in 
Palestine. In that country, as we know, there arose a genius 
who said that God is love, said it so that it is heard and believed 
to this day in Europe. 

“Now I will ask you to note that, if we are to go by what God 
allows to befall men and beasts on this miserable earth, there 
never was a madder or more insulting utterance than this, that 
God is love. 

“But the saying stubbornly holds good. The religious in¬ 
dividual learns in an inner way that God is love. 

“Nay, even the non-religious, to whom this experience is barred, 
has no doubt that, if God exists at all, he must be love. As he 
doesn’t see anything of this love, he just concludes that there 
can’t be any god either. 

“I don’t know whether God—finally and definitely—is love; 
but I know that to this belief, and no further, man’s religious 
feeling has reached to date. 


Mother and Daughter 127 

“Now, so as to explain what I mean and to prevent your being 
deterred by the marvellous and seraphic fatuity of our theological 
faculty, let me recapitulate what I said before about religion and 
the church. 

“When the Galilean was dead, leaving to the world as his new 
testament the maxim that God is love, the men who had known 
him came and said: ‘The Galilean says that God is love; he who 
believes this shall be saved,’ and that is true, because faith be¬ 
comes an inner act which creates love, and that again increases 
the power of faith; and they said further: ‘The Galilean was 
himself love, the Galilean was God.’ Now we have Christianity, 
the religion. A little later this became : ‘God is love, the Galilean 
is God; he who does not believe this shall be burnt.’ That was 
the church. The religious feeling, which ought to have been 
love of God —since one cannot well entertain any feeling for love 
but love itself—because love of the church and hatred of heretics. 
Religion became theology. 

“But then there were people who could not live on doctrines, 
people in whom the religious feeling lived and grew in steadily in¬ 
creasing purity. They were the mystics. To them dogmas and 
doctrines were not even worth opposing. 

“Quietly, without any reformers’ clamour, they grew up through 
the church’s roof, so high that the very conception of God seemed 
to them blasphemous. They were content to love him unseen. 

“Those are the ones you should study. In them you may per¬ 
haps find what you are looking for. 

“But you look so surprised!” 

“Yes,” said Dahl, “I am surprised—at you. I had no idea 
you were religious.” 

“Nor am I—at any rate, my religious faculties are extremely 
poor—but my religious needs are great. Can’t you understand 
that? Then imagine a man whose craving for women is great, 
but whose power of making an impression on them is small. 
Don’t you think such a man would spend his time early and late 
in studying the erotic feeling, its nature and its laws? What 
do I want with religious feeling, when I wasn’t born with the re¬ 
ligious instinct ? you may ask. I think it is due to an accident that 
happened when I was a child and left a defect in my character, 
which I should like to see healed. And I know that the religious 
feeling is capable of performing miracles of that kind. 

“But it is not the only medicine for the character. There is 


128 The Philosopher’s Stone 

my father, a clergyman, who undoubtedly became one from con¬ 
viction and desire. At one time he was a famous preacher. I 
was only a small boy then, but I have a lively impression of him, 
and not a good one. On one and the same day he became a 
good and upright man and a bad preacher. But it was not 
religion that did it. It was a great sorrow, a severe affliction.” 

He stopped for a moment, and then said, more to himself than 
to Dahl: 

“But sorrow and affliction will not help me. They attack me 
just on my weak spot and make it worse. But it was not me 
we were to talk about. It was you. Keep on at theology and see 
if it hasn’t some side-track which can lead you into ‘the open.’ 
The speech of the mystics seems to me at times like your ‘lan¬ 
guage of heaven’—as far as I have understood it.” 

Dahl took out his note-book. “Can you tell me the titles 
of any books about mysticism which you would advise me to 
begin with?” he asked. 

Barnes looked away, as though he was shy of something and 
wanted to hide it from Dahl. 

“I can,” he said at last. “And if I liked—if I liked-” He 

stopped and gave Dahl a look of reservation and scrutiny, then 
turned to the window without finishing his sentence. 

“If you liked-?” repeated Dahl. 

Barnes still stood with his back to him and talked at the 
window. 

“If I liked I could take you to a house where you would find 
many of the books you want and have a chance of talking about 
them to one who is also looking for a forgotten language—and 
who has doubtless found that it was heavenly, even if—or perhaps 
just because —there was some earthly music in it.” 

“But you don’t want to?” asked Dahl. 

Barnes still kept his back to him. 

“Oh, yes; why shouldn’t I?” he said hesitatingly. “Why not?” 
At last he turned, so that Dahl could see his face. It was calm, 
indifferent, but a trifle absent. 

“What are you puzzling about?” asked Dahl. 

A thin smile appeared on Barnes’s lips. 

“Well, I was just thinking of one day when I was a boy,” he 
said in a careless tone. “I was standing on a beam in the barn at 
home and I took it into my head to jump down. Something 




Mother and Daughter 129 

within me said: ‘You’d better not, you’ll hurt yourself.’ All 
at once I took the jump in spite of that. I hurt myself con¬ 
foundedly—but I got over it.” 

“Yes, I see you did,” said Dahl. “But what connection is 
there between that and what we’re talking about?” 

“No,” said Barnes. “What connection has it with that? If 
you have time we can go there at once.” 

Dahl got up. 

“I should like to know where it is.” 

“I can tell you that as we go,” said Barnes. 

“I am more or less a relation of hers,” he said, when they 
were in the street, “but it’s so distant that I can’t be bothered to 
reckon it out.” 

“Her ? What ‘her’ ?” asked Dahl. 

“The lady we’re going to see. She’s a widow. What I am 
going to tell you about her is not what I’ve been told, nor is it 
what I’ve thought out for myself, but a mixture of the two. She 
played rather an important part in the ideas of my early childhood, 
Mrs. Sonne.” 

“Mrs. Sonne?” 

“Yes, that’s her name—but then she was called Livia, Livia 
Holsoe. In my aunt’s hateful talk, I could see that she had been 
down on Livia, as she was down on me, and though I understood 
well enough that Livia was much bigger than I was, I still felt 
uncommonly sorry for the unknown Livia. 

“Of course I didn’t understand all the things my aunt said 
about her to Father and Mother; above all, I couldn’t make out 
what harm there was in it. They talked about it quite calmly 
while I was in the room, because I was so small that it was 
far beyond me. They forgot I hated my aunt so much that 
every word she said was imprinted in my memory as deeply as my 
loathing of her had penetrated my soul. And that was a long 
way.—Well, one fine day she died.” 

Dahl could not help laughing. 

“You say it as triumphantly as if you had killed her yourself!” 

“No,” said Barnes, “I wasn’t big enough for that. But I 
went to her funeral, you may be sure! 

“From what I remember of her snarling about Livia, and what 
I’ve heard since from Mrs. Sonne herself, I have put together 
this story: 


130 The Philosopher’s Stone 

“Her mother was an invalid and was nursed by my aunt. Poor 
woman! The doctor advised a stay in the South, and Livia and 
my aunt went with her. 

“In Italy they made the acquaintance of a young cappellano, 
who gained great influence over Livia and her mother and was 
consequently the object of my aunt’s intense dislike. He was 
not only a gifted confessor, who knew how to comfort the invalid, 
but at the same time, according to my aunt, he was so disgrace¬ 
fully handsome that Livia could scarcely avoid being converted. 
Whether it was the result of pious longings or of priestly good 
looks, I don’t know, but certain it is that she begged her mother 
to let her enter a convent. Aunt smashed a tumbler when she 
told us about it. 

“The mother had no objection, but Aunt went for the invalid 
woman with clenched fists and Martin Luther. It ended in a 
compromise: Livia was to go home and spend a year in self- 
examination. If after that she wished to be dead to the world, 
she might have her way. 

“She went home, young and enthusiastic, and met a lieutenant 
of dragoons. Verbum sap.! 

“That lieutenant had blood in his veins, Aunt said, and when 
she talked of the conversion she had worked in Livia, Father used 
to snigger and Mother smiled to herself and gave a little dep¬ 
recatory toss of the head. 

“But the lieutenant died as a young captain. 

“And now—well, to put it briefly, it’s too late for the Mrs. 
Sonne you’re going to meet to become a nun and too early for her 
to be a widow. But the religion which she forgot during her 
married life has stretched out feelers after her, and the books 
by and about the old Christian mystics, which the cappellano 
got for her mother, are to be found on her table and in her 
bookcase. And the cappellano himself—well, it would surprise 
me if he hasn’t a little altar in her heart, before which she 
kneels now and then to pray for support and enlightenment.” 

“Then she is living entirely alone?” asked Dahl. 

“Yes—that is, of course, she has her daughter with her,” said 
Barnes as he looked along the row of houses. 

“Has she a daughter?” 

“Yes—ah, here it is, No. 23. We go up here. Yes, she has 
a daughter; her name is Katharina, Eighteen.” 


Mother and Daughter 131 

A moment later Dahl found himself in a home. He was en¬ 
veloped in a soft stillness which was full of ubiquitous life, and 
as he bowed to Mrs. Sonne and heard Barnes introducing him as 
a schoolfellow and a theological student specially interested in 
Christian mysticism, he had a vision of a wood in springtime, 
just before the anemones peep through the carpet of dead leaves. 
For a good while after he had seated himself in the window op¬ 
posite Mrs. Sonne, this image continued to haunt his fancy, while 
he was replying to her—rather general—remarks about the Vic¬ 
tories, Eckhardt, Boehme, and the mystics of the Spanish school. 
But by degrees she detached herself clearly from the home which 
was her creation, and her personality captivated him so powerfully 
that he forgot what she was saying, simply in listening to the 
sound of her voice. 

Her gestures had a lingering softness and a thoughtful ten¬ 
derness, as though a motherly instinct were always ready to 
respond when called upon. Her voice, even when explaining, had 
a questioning note. Her eyes were self-contradictory: intro¬ 
spective and awake, experienced and uncertain, liable at the same 
time to bewilder by the wealth they contained and to be them¬ 
selves bewildered by it. She talked to Dahl as a mature woman 
to a young man, but with a yielding readiness to bow to his 
intellectual powers. 

With the daughter he had no conversation at all, but in spite 
of that he had a clear impression of her, since she was present 
in the room and in a way took part in everything her mother 
did. 

Now and then he heard her voice and Barnes’s, one with a 
rather forced familiarity, the other frankly cordial but with an 
occasional note of reserve. 

It was her laughing, as it turned out, which put an end to the 
visit. 

It began with a gentle clucking, like the sound of a brook in 
spring. It looked as if a ray of sunlight flashed across her face, 
which was hastily dropped on her bosom, while her mouth held 
back the next little cluck which tried to come out. Barnes glanced 
at Dahl, on whom her observant eyes had been resting when the 
first little cluck jumped out unawares. 

“What are you laughing at?” he said. 

Her eyes flew up at once to his questioning face and slipped 


132 The Philosopher’s Stone 

away as quickly as a bird hiding in a bush, and her mouth shut 
tighter on the laughter within. 

Barnes glanced again at Dahl. 

“Why, it was him you were laughing at,” he said; “but I 
can’t discover anything comic about him.” 

Then the pressure was too great; the little red knot she had 
made of her mouth came undone and her laughter trilled loudly 
through the room, cutting across the theological observations of 
the other couple. 

Then it was her mother’s turn to ask, and that really fin¬ 
ished it. 

When Dahl’s eyes met hers he caught the infection and laughed, 
and Barnes joined in because the victim sat there laughing heartily 
without a notion that he was laughing at himself, and Katharina, 
who saw what had made Barnes laugh and knew that he was 
absolutely on the wrong track, started laughing again in a totally 
different tone, which caught Barnes’s attention and made him 
serious. 

His good-bye came with a surprise as abrupt as Katharina’s 
first little cluck. 

Mrs. Sonne fetched a couple of books from her writing-table, 
gave them to Dahl, and invited him to come again—some time 
when Katharina had finished laughing. 

Dahl gave Katharina his hand, and Barnes’s eyes moved doubt¬ 
fully from one to the other; they looked as if each knew what 
was amusing the other, which was impossible; he himself felt 
that he was the only one who really knew anything about it, 
and that he was at the same time outside it and alone, which 
was unreasonable. 

Mrs. Sonne saw them out. Meanwhile Katharina sat looking 
at the chair Dahl had occupied, and laughing at her own fool¬ 
ishness. What had made her give that first little cluck that 
Barnes had heard? Why, it was because, just as she was look¬ 
ing at the new face and trying to make out whether she liked 
it, it had suddenly occurred to her in a teasing way why she 
did her hair so carefully every morning and why it amused her 
to look in the glass so often and so long at a time. 

She sat up in her chair and put all these follies behind her. 

Then she imperceptibly glided into a reclining position. She 
sat with her cheek in her hand, and knew, with a deep feeling of 
tranquillity, that she would go on doing her hair carefully and 


Mother and Daughter 133 

would continue to examine her face in the glass and dream 
over it. 

She was left with plenty of time for her own thoughts. Her 
mother looked into the kitchen after saying good-bye. Katharina 
did not hear when she came in at last. 

The silence of the room checked the words Mrs. Sonne in¬ 
tended to say. She stood looking at her daughter, who sat with 
her back turned, lost in thought. 

Gradually, as she yielded to the feeling that was expressed in 
the girl’s figure, the same mood took possession of her, and she had 
a vision of a stone seat high up on the coast of southern Italy, 
a seat where she herself sat gazing out over the sea with her 
thoughts somewhere far inland. 

With the ghost of a smile at herself and her innocent fool¬ 
ishness, she sat down with her elbow resting on the table and 
her cheek in her hand in the same attitude as Katharina. 

All the difference in expression between the two faces was that 
one looked forward, the other back. 

But a moment later Katharina felt that she was no longer 
alone. She turned to her mother, gave a start, and exclaimed: 

‘‘Why, Mother, how young you’re looking!” 

Mrs. Sonne got up; her eyes had an absent look, though she had 
obviously heard what her daughter said, and about her lips lay 
a tiny hint of a smile of a perfectly definite kind, which Katharina 
had often felt on her own face when she had just been reading 
some particularly delightful book and was amusing herself by 
mixing it up with her own everyday life. So Mother had not 
yet outgrown that kind of playing with one’s fancy. 

Mrs. Sonne noticed her scrutinizing look, felt that something 
must be said, and asked suddenly: 

“What do you think of Mr. Dahl ?” 

As she said it she felt, for no reason at all, half shy at her 
question and tried to pass it off with a commonplace remark 
about him. 

But Katharina put her head on one side, with a look of con¬ 
sideration, and then said frankly, emphasizing it indeed with a 
little decided nod: 

“I think he’s awfully nice.” 

Mrs. Sonne nodded. The subject was exhausted. She moved 
about the room with a curious indecision. Katharina followed 
her with her eyes. It looked as though Mother’s feet had taken 


134 The Philosopher’s Stone 

leave to wander this way and that, exactly like a pair of horses 
when the coachman stays too long in a shop. 

Now they stopped at the writing-table. A hand took a key 
and unlocked a drawer. Two little books—the green one and 
the red!—were taken out and placed on the table—where those 
she had given Dahl had lain. 

Would Mother really lend him thosef She could scarcely be¬ 
lieve it, but caught herself wishing it. She herself had been re¬ 
fused, when once she had asked to be allowed to read them. 
And the reason given was that she would not understand what 
was in them. It was religion. But it couldn’t be that alone 
which made them so sacred. There was something old and 
precious about them. They had been Grandmother’s. One of 
them. 

She felt inclined to ask whether Mr. Dahl was to read them; 
but then it occurred to her that her mother might perhaps say no, 
and she didn’t want to hear that no. 

To avoid asking the question she went into her own room, 
where for a while she wrestled with the problem what earthly 
difference it could make to her if Mother refused to show those 
books to Dahl, when in her own case she had accepted the 
refusal without a murmur. 


XXV. Understanding 

T HE sense of a home clung to Dahl all the way back from 
Mrs. Sonne’s; the sound of her gentle, hushed voice 
was still in his ears. All at once the vision of a wood 
in springtime reappeared, and Katharina’s laughter reverberated 
over the anemones. A smile flitted across his face and he 
blinked as in a strong, vivid light. 

The smile lasted until he met his “crooked” landlady on the 
rotten, creaking stairs. She gave him an oily grin, showed her 
teeth, and scowled. She had something hidden under her apron, 
so she was on the way to fetch spirits, to the terror of the deaf 
sister and the grief of the old aunt. 

The deaf one met him in the passage, which always smelt as if 
his three landladies had had cabbage for dinner. She nodded, 
tittered and hopped about nervously, as she always did when a 
man appeared. 

The old one followed him into his room. 

“Welcome back again, Mr. Daahl,” she said, with her broad 
country accent. “I haven’t seen you since. You can’t think how 
I’ve missed having to clean up after you. And so you got your 
mother buried?” 

She stood facing him in solid self-possession, her broad, 
pleasant face glowing with tactful devotion. It beats me, he 
thought, how she can be related to Crooked and Deaf. 

“What made you move into town ?” he asked. 

“Ah, my word,” she said, “you may well ask. I come from 
down Koge way, and I could just as well have stayed there the 
rest of my days. But my husband died, and my son died, and 
then it was all the same to me, and after all, you see, I’m the aunt 
of this here pair of old maids that own the house, and so I thought 
I might as well come and help them. They want it too, I can 
tell you.—Well, I’m not going to disturb you; I only wanted 
to have a sight of you again.” 

Then she went back to her own room, quite pleased. She had 
feelings to spare and gave them to him ungrudgingly, without 

135 


136 The Philosopher’s Stone 

a thought of return. Of course she would have liked to sit and 
talk awhile about his mother, but as he said nothing it naturally 
meant that he only looked on her as a stranger. 

All the same, he had friendly thoughts of her as he sat 
alone. His old landlady was another one who gave him a sense 
of home. Yes, she was homely, old Martha. In a cornfield at 
Koge, in the streets of Copenhagen, in her two*half-witted nieces’ 
boarding-house—everywhere she was imperturbably at home 
in herself. 

He opened one of Mrs. Sonne’s books to read of the mystics 
who sought their home in God. 

Twilight came, the God of the mystics vanished in eternal 
nothingness, and Dahl felt lonely, far away from everything, 
like a hermit in a deep forest, a hermit looking with a sigh at the 
anemones peeping up from the luxuriant soil beneath the trees. 
A sudden craving for female society reminded him that it was 
tea-time, and he went into Nanna Bang’s room. 

She gave him a covert look and thought for a moment that 
the undressing of the preceding evening had been a dream. In 
any case, he appeared either to have forgotten it or to regard it 
as entirely innocent. 

He let her make tea and accepted her waiting upon him as 
naturally as if they had been man and wife. After tea he pro¬ 
ceeded to smoke a cigar. She sat watching the thick blue clouds 
for a few moments. 

“There’ll be an awfully mannish smell in here,” she said in 
a rather high-pitched voice. 

He offered to throw away his cigar. 

“No, no,” she exclaimed with animation; “go on. It’s so 
pleasant to see you puffing away at it. You’re like Father.— 
Do you know, I think this room has such a lot of home 
about it.” 

She gave her father’s inkstand a little friendly nudge and 
enjoyed a look into her mother’s mirror. 

“We were Catholics at home,” she said, pointing to the 
crucifix. “And I am still. Do you think that strange?” 

No, he was just reading about the Catholic mystics. 

“Tell me about them,” she begged him. 

While he was telling her, she sat leaning forward with her 
hand between her knees and looked smaller than usual. 

“Now you’re like Father,” she said; “when he was young, 


Understanding 137 

of course, about the time he married Mother, I should think.” 

A sudden blush spread over her cheeks. “Well—I mean—I 
didn’t see him then of course—but I imagine he must have been 
something—oh, what nonsense I’m talking!” 

“I don’t see that,” he said. “If I’m like your father it’s only 
natural that you should think of him as he was when he was my 
age or thereabouts. I can quite understand your suddenly 
having the idea that you could see him as he must have looked 
before you knew him.” 

She looked at him a trifle doubtfully and inquiringly, but was 
reassured by his unaffected air, and felt gratitude and admi¬ 
ration for his understanding, even though he had not quite hit 
the mark. 

“You’re a dear,” she said, after a genial little pause; “and the 
good thing about you is that one can tell you so. You understand 
what one means; most men always misunderstand a woman.” 

She looked at him with satisiaction; a moment later her eyes 
glanced away and an equivocal half-smile came over her face. 

“What are you laughing at?” he asked. 

“Nothing,” she said, and started playing “La brune Therese” 
to avoid confessing, both to him and to herself, that she had 
been wondering which of them knew best, the men who under¬ 
stood or the men who misunderstood. 


XXVI. Theosophists 

N EXT day Dahl went to see Barnes and found a strange 
company, whom Barnes introduced: Petersen, a 
breeches-maker, Kjellstrom, a working shoemaker, 
and Bjarnoe, a man of private means. The three men soon left. 
“What in the world were those creatures?” asked Dahl. 
“Theosophists,” Barnes replied. 

“But what have you got to do with them?” 

“To see how a religion arises and develops. To watch it 
and take part in it.” 

“You?” 

“Yes. Of course the theosophical religion (which alleges 
that it isn't a religion) arose a long time ago, but the Hafnia 
congregation is still young—though it’s beginning to show signs 
of the slight friction which by and by will give rise to the schisms 
inseparable from all religions from the very moment they quit 
the lap of divine revelation.” 

“Is theosophy a revelation too?” asked Dahl, who was not 
quite clear about Barnes’s attitude towards it. 

“Of course. We have everything. We also have miracles. 
No, it’s nothing to laugh at. I think a miracle is an excellent 
invention. But it ought to happen a good way off, or else I 
don’t believe in it. The theosophical miracles take place in India. 
That is where the mahatmas live, there and in Tibet. They are 
men who in loftiness of spirit do not fall far short of Jesus. But 
they seem to have more sense, as they don’t show themselves 
and get put to death by the mob. They keep well hidden. 
Nevertheless there are people who have seen them.” 

“Do you believe in it?” 

“Neither believe nor disbelieve so far. I’m still in the inves¬ 
tigation stage.” 

“But those three who were here just now?” 

“I’ve picked them for my particular friends on account of the 
frankness of their nature. Sophus Petersen, the breeches-maker, 
has done odd jobs in different countries, in Sweden last of all, 

138 


Theosophists 139 

where he played ducks and drakes and drank snaps. One day 
he got hold of a theosophical book, and then he saw that he had 
the truth. He turned sober, and to get away from his tippling 
companions he and his wife learned breeches-making. Now 
they're established here and doing quite well. The wife does 
the sewing and pressing, while Peterson ‘develops himself.' ” 

“How?" 

“Spiritually. He is blessed with a calm enthusiasm and a 
naive belief in everything taught by theosophy. On the whole it 
looks as if even more intellectually gifted people, who have been 
unable to believe in the dogmas of Christianity, have no sooner 
joined a theosophical society than they acquire the stomach of 
a spiritual ostrich and can digest anything in the way of incredible 
metaphysics. As far as Petersen is concerned, he has actually 
acquired more soul for every year I have known him. And 
since he came back from Sweden he speaks really decent Danish, 
only he has a trick of getting in a ‘however' every time he opens 
his mouth. His wife’s a rattling good woman." 

“Is she a theosophist too?" 

“M—no. Decidedly not. That it to say, she knows a lot 
about theosophical metaphysics and I should think in her heart 
she counts on its genuineness. But all the same she can’t stand 
theosophy at any price." 

“How can that be?" 

“Well, that’s what I was wondering for a good while, till 
I found the solution last Wednesday, when I was having a cup 
of coffee at Petersen’s. It’s all on account of a sofa." 

“I beg your pardon?" 

“Yes, a couch which Petersen got on the hire system, as he 
honestly admitted. I could see Mrs. Emilie purse her mouth 
as he mentioned it, and the look she cast at the sofa was not 
exactly one of affection." 

“Perhaps she believes in cash payment on principle." 

“No, it isn’t that. No, but the sofa is a chastity sofa.” 

“A what?" 

“Chastity sofa. You see, Petersen wants to develop himself, 
wants to become a yogi, a disciple of the mahatmas. But that 
requires absolute purity of thought, word and deed—including 
anything to do with the lusts of the flesh. You have to be a 
vegetarian both in your diet and your sexual life. But I don’t 
expect Mrs. Emilie married with the idea of her husband 


140 The Philosopher’s Stone 

sleeping on a sofa. And then it’s pretty hard lines that she 
should have to slave to pay it off. Petersen is all kindness 
towards her, but 'development’ comes before everything. I 
anticipate trouble for that couple, though both have the very 
best intentions. Altogether religion has just as much power 
for producing unblessedness as blessedness in this world.” 

"What was that other fellow, the little Swede, who looked 
like Strindberg?” 

"Strindberg! Yes, you’re right, he does. Strange, it never 
struck me before. The same mighty forehead and the little 
compressed chin, the genius and the son of a servant-girl. Just 
so, Kjellstrom is a miniature portrait of Strindberg, only 
mentally more harmonious. But just as fanatical in his specu¬ 
lations. He is a shoemaker, but you needn’t laugh at that; 
Jacob Boehme was the same.” 

"Has Mr. Kjellstrom a chastity sofa too?” 

"Yes, but he already has children enough to go on with. They 
fill every room in his little flat except one. There he has his 
sofa, his table, his bookshelves and his cigar-box.” 

"Then tobacco is not prohibited?” 

"There are no cigars in the box. There’s a machine for per¬ 
petual motion. You mustn’t be so ready to laugh. If the 
saviour of the world could lie in a manger why shouldn’t the 
conqueror of the world lie in a cigar-box?” 

"Yes, but perpetual motion-” 

"Can’t be done. I know that. Can prove it into the bargain. 
No normal brain can produce a machine for perpetual motion. 
But then Kjellstrom isn’t normal, he’s a genius.” 

"No, look here, Barnes!” 

"Yes, listen to me—Kjellstrom doesn’t employ normal methods 
when he takes to inventing. He invents in a supernatural way. 
I told you Petersen wanted to be a yogi—Kjellstrom is a yogi. 
He sinks in meditation into the depths of his being—and there, in 
profound contemplation, he creates perpetual motion.” 

"Oh, I see!” 

"Yes, but he has done it. It’s lying in the cigar-box.” 

“Lying, I dare say, but it doesn’t go.” 

Barnes leaned back in his chair and looked at Dahl for a 
moment. 

“I have seen it go,” he said calmly. "It went quite nicely 
by itself a couple of turns. Then it went to pieces, because it 


Theosophists 141 

was made of matches and bits of cigar-box. Of course it's a 
defect in a machine of that sort if it can only go for a minute, 
but still, a minute is a beginning. And when Kjellstrom 
explained the mechanism to me and put the pieces together— 
I believed in him 

“Physics is hardly your special line,” Dahl protested. 

“Thats why I went to a capable engineer and took him with 
me to Kjellstrom’s. I didn’t say what I was going to show him, 
or he wouldn’t have come. Kjellstrom had put the machine 
together again. It went two and a half times round; then the 
matches fell apart.” 

“What did your engineer say?” 

“I remember it word for word. He said: ‘Well, I’m blasted!’ 
Then Kjellstrom started in with his explanation, and then the 
engineer said once more: ‘Well, I’m blasted!’ More than that 
I couldn’t get out of him before we’d gone a good way down 
the street. He stopped at a door. ‘I’m going in here,’ he said. 
‘Mark my words: perpetual motion can’t be made—but blast me 
if I’m sure that confounded Swede hasn’t made it. At all events, 
I’ll get him a material that’ll hold together for more than a 
couple of minutes. The owner of this factory will let him have 
the material he wants. The man must be given a chance of work¬ 
ing at his machine. Either he’ll do the impossible, or he’ll 
invent something possible and useful—or else he’ll end in a mad¬ 
house. What a devil he is! Blast me if I ever-’ After 

that he went up to the factory. And now the owner of it has 
promised to supply Kjellstrom with all the material he wants— 
though he’s a man with a scientific and technical education.” 

Dahl shook his head, laughing. 

“And your third friend?” he asked. 

“The seraph?” 

“Is he a seraph? Well, I can believe anything now,” said 
Dahl. 

“The seraph is my name for him, when I think of him,” said 
Barnes. “His name is Bjarnoe and he has plenty of money— 
can afford to do what he likes.” 

“What does he do, then?” 

“He listens to the music of the spheres,” said Barnes. “Yes, 
now you’re grinning again. But let me tell you that I sometimes 
think it must be that he echoes in his playing. The seraph knows 
how to listen. I believe his idea is that by listening you can 


142 The Philosopher’s Stone 

find out the deepest secrets of existence. I know he thinks 
there is only one language that can express them, the language 
common to all mankind—music. Have you ever seen a face 
so pure, so angelically white as his? If an angel became man, 
he would have to look like him. 

“And yet sometimes there is a heaviness about his eyes, as 
though a calamity was waiting somewhere, ready to fall upon 
him. I have found myself suddenly impelled to take him by 
the arm and say: ‘Come along, you’ll see, the world will come 
to an end one fine day; let’s slip over to some little out-of-the- 
way place while it’s on.’ I can’t get rid of the uncomfortable 
feeling that there is something or other which the seraph ought 
to be saved from. 

“Well, I can see now, you’ve come to the conclusion that I’m 
a bit off my head and that my three friends are raving mad. 
Well, well, it’s quite true that there are some people who are 
looking for only one thing in the world. Blind to everything 
else on earth, each in his own fashion tries to find the impossible, 
the thing which, when he has it, gives him all he needs. They are 
looking for the philosopher’s stone. 

“But what about yourself, my friend, who are trying to get 
into ‘the open’ and to live in the world of the language of heaven, 
which is hidden from ordinary mortals? Are you not hoping, 
just as these are, to find the philosopher’s stone?” 

“Perhaps,” said Dahl. “And yourself?” 

“I,” answered Barnes, “am one who goes about waiting for 
a miracle to happen to myself. I am a cripple hoping for 
recovery. A vice-” 

He stopped and blushed hotly, for he saw in Dahl’s eyes that 
it had suddenly dawned on him what the vice was that had stolen 
away the strength of his soul and body. He looked down at 
the floor and nervously rubbed his clammy hands. 

“It was grafted in me when I was a child,” he said, more 
frankly and unreservedly than Dahl had ever heard him speak. 
“And the very nature of my mind, my inexhaustible desire to 
track down other people’s thoughts and ideas, makes it 
impossible for me unaided to become the character I was born to 
be—and should hate to die without becoming. I am on the look¬ 
out for somebody who can make me whole. Whether it’s a god or 
a man that performs the miracle is all the same to me.” 



XXVII. The Cappellano’s Precepts 

D AHL called on Mrs. Sonne to return the books he had 
•borrowed. Katharina listened intently while he was 
telling her mother of the impression the books had 
made on him. 

“I have a feeling,” he said, “that they will have a determining 
effect on my whole life. I cannot say I have fully understood 
their language, which is at times obscure. But I believe they 
have to be lived rather than understood, and I have an idea that 
what now appears obscure would be revealed in the light of 
experience as clear and profound psychology.” 

Mrs. Sonne nodded and said with animation: 

“Yes, yes—that is just it.” 

Dahl looked at her in surprise: “Do you know it?” he asked. 
“Have you lived it?” 

But she shook her head. 

“No, no—it is not for me—but I know it nevertheless. I 
have met—people who have made the experience.” 

“In me,” Dahl continued, “they awaken a vague impression 
that I know what it is they are talking about. It is no more than 
the vaguest feeling, but it calls to me in a voice I seem to know 
better than any other. It is like my own inmost ego calling 
me home. I imagine an emigrant who gets hold of a book 
from ‘the old country’ and reads about places where he lived 
long ago, must have much the same feeling, and that a longing 
for home must spring up in him, so that he feels he can have 
no rest or peace until he revisits his old home. 

“But unfortunately I don’t know the way that leads to the 
experience. But I have a feeling that, even if it sometimes comes 
as a surprise, it is nevertheless the result of a preparation 
involved in the life led by the mystics. 

“By the way, do you know where I have found the same 
experience expressed in modern phraseology and shorn of all 
ecclestiastical embellishment? This is what Tennyson writes 
about it: 


143 


144 The Philosopher’s Stone 

" 'All at once, as it were, out of the intensity of the conscious¬ 
ness of individuality, the individuality itself seemed to dissolve 
and fade away into boundless being; and this not a confused 
state, but the clearest of the clearest, the surest of the surest, 
utterly beyond words, where death was an almost laughable im¬ 
possibility, the loss of personality seeming no extinction but the 
only true life/ 

“I know that I have experienced something similar, but that that 
state is now closed to me—and that I shall have no rest until it 
opens again/’ 

Mrs. Sonne examined his young face attentively. His zeal 
was so youthful, and yet she had a feeling of solemnity and 
awe at the thought that his whole destiny was contained in this 
ardent desire of what he regarded as the one thing needful. 

She slowly got up and went to the writing-table, where she took 
up the two manuscript books, looked at them a moment, and put 
them down again. 

Katharina followed her movements intently. Yes—a smile of 
pleasure flashed across her face—now Mother was going to him 
with the red volume in her hand. 

Mrs. Sonne paused for a few moments with the volume in her 
hand before she spoke, and Katharina felt, with a wave of hot 
anxiety, that at that moment her mother, with some hesitation, 
was adopting Dahl into her home. 

Then she gave him the book. Katharina was relieved and glad. 
And yet she had no idea what was in the little red volume. 

As she gave Dahl the book, Mrs. Sonne said: 

"This is a description of the way, written by one who—while 
still young—himself attained to the experience. It is an account 
of the daily spiritual exercises which in his case led to a life 
that is not open to many. 

"If you would like to borrow it, you may. And if you can 
profit by it, it will give pleasure to—him.” 

Her eyes were turned to the window, her expression became 
absent; she seemed to glide away from them. 

The very intimacy of her tone increased the distance between 
them, and Dahl felt the time had come for him to go. 

Katharina saw him out. 

In the hall he noticed that they were moving softly and in step, 
as though there was somebody they had agreed not to disturb. 

As she closed the door he heard a little cluck and felt almost 


The Cappellano’s Precepts 145 

irresistibly inclined to open the letter-box and call ‘‘Hullo!” 
after her. . . . 

“Mother,” said Katharina, when she was back in the drawing¬ 
room, “that man you were talking about, the man whose book 
you lent to Dahl—what kind of life did he have which is not 
open to very many?” 

“He was led into a life which is not of this world,” said 
Mrs. Sonne; “in it he lives and moves only as a friend and helper 
of mankind.” 

Katharina stood fingering the green volume. 

“Is it Italian?” she asked. 

“Yes, he was an Italian,” said her mother. 

“Is this his handwriting?” 

“Yes.” Mrs. Sonne took up the volume and restored it to its 
hiding-place. 

Katharina watched her with her hand in the same position 
as if the book had still been there. 

Then she swept her hand rapidly over her dress, as though 
brushing something off. “I think if one is in this world, one 
ought to be here,” she said. 


XXVIII. Nanna Bang Thinks Deeply 

N ANNA BANG could not quite control her nerves. It 
was just upon tea-time, and every now and then she 
got up and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on, 
but turned back each time, sat down, and glanced at the door. 

It was fun making tea after he had come and sat waiting in 
her room. 

But the last few evenings he hadn’t come at all. It would soon 
be a week. 

Before that he used to come every evening as though it was 
a matter of course that she should make tea for him, and after¬ 
wards he would sit and talk right on to bedtime. He behaved, 
in fact, exactly as if they were married. 

She looked about the room and a warmth came into her brown 
eyes; she really had a home. She felt a little, religious cosiness 
in her heart, for she had quite come back to her religion lately. 
In the shop one never heard anything of that kind, and it was so 
easy to get out of the way of it. But since that evening when 
she might have gone the same way as her sister and had been 
saved from it—she looked at the crucifix, which had recovered 
its old life, and reflected that now she said her prayers again most 
evenings, as in her childhood. 

But now it was half an hour past tea-time and she had to go 
out to her “Primus,” but couldn’t understand why he didn’t 
come. 

From the kitchen she heard the crooked one’s snivelling voice 
and the deaf one’s staccato. A clammy sense of loneliness crept 
over her. She clattered with the cups and produced a fit of 
coughing as she passed his door, but it was not opened. 

Then she drank her tea in discomfort. The room looked 
like a stove that wouldn’t burn; the furniture yawned with a dead 
emptiness, Jesus hung suffering mechanically upon the cross, and 
she sat mournfully munching a biscuit that tasted of nothing 
on earth. 

She might just as well go to bed and sleep off her boredom. 

146 


Nanna Bang Thinks Deeply 147 

No sooner was she in bed than she jumped up again with a 
start and brought her clenched fist down on the bed-clothes. 

Could that be what kept him back, That he was afraid of for¬ 
getting himself again ? For she had to admit that it might easily 
happen to a man when they sat every evening in such cosy 
familiarity. 

But his fears were quite needless, for, now that she knew what 
might happen, it was easy for her to avert it. A woman may 
be taken by surprise, but when she has had a warning it is not 
very difficult to keep a man within proper limits. 

But of course she couldn’t tell him that. No, but to-morrow 
evening she could just go in and fetch him; that would show 
him that there was no danger in it. 

And naturally, if there was any danger, she would not herself 
encourage him to come. 

Why couldn’t it have occurred to her this evening! Now she 
would probably lie awake all night waiting for to-morrow. 

And, true enough, sleep deserted her. She tried to realize his 
thoughts—a man’s thoughts. And she thought how pleasantly the 
days has passed lately at the shop, because she had looked for¬ 
ward to coming home, and how nice it had been to smile 
confidentially at the married women when closing-time came. 
She felt more closely allied to them than to the young girl 
assistants. 

The house was still and every sound could be heard. She 
heard him turning over in his bed. So he could not sleep either. 

But what was that ? He was getting up ? Great heavens, and 
her door wasn’t locked! 

Now he was out in the passage. She pulled the bed-clothes up 
over her head. 

The front door clicked. He had gone out—at this time! 

She struck a match. It was half past eleven. 

Tears came into her eyes. For when a man gets out of bed 

and goes out at this time of night-! She was not so ignorant 

of life as that. 

She dried her eyes on the sheet. Not that it was any concern 
of hers—that wasn’t what made her cry—but it hurt her to think 
that a refined person like him could do such things. And it 
wasn’t altogether pleasant to reflect that it was really her fault 
if he fell into the very thing he had saved her from. 

She lit her lamp and looked in the direction of the crucifix. 


148 The Philosopher’s Stone 

There would be no harm in it if she prayed that he might be 
led into a better frame of mind and go home to bed. 

But she did not pray, because an idea occurred to her. That 
evening when she herself went roving and prayed that she might 
escape unharmed, he had been sent. For it was a very strange 
chance that she should meet him of all persons. And since then 
everything had gone well with her. But suppose it was intended 
that things should go well for both of them—that they should 
preserve each other from worse things.—Well, after all, she 
would pray that he might be as well protected as she had been, 
and in return she would promise that if it was intended that they 
two . . . then she would be submissive. . . . 

When, an hour later, she heard the front door open, an inner 
voice told her that he came home as pure as he had gone out, 
and with a good resolution she fell asleep smiling. 


XXIX. Ecstasy 

D AHL had been lying awake and meditating. He had read 
Mrs. Sonne’s little manuscript volume with a feeling 
that it had been written expressly for him. For a 
week he had carefully followed its directions without a thought 
of anything else, and the result was a dryness and an emptiness 
more inconsolable than he had felt when, in contempt for dog¬ 
matic futility, he had abandoned his faith in Christianity and 
tried to deaden his thoughts with the help of alcohol and 
women. 

Finally a profound contempt for himself had made solitude 
unbearable, and he had gone to see Barnes and asked him 
straight out: 

“Tell me, Barnes, have you formed any definite opinion about 
me?” 

“Yes, thanks,” Barnes had answered, looking at him with a 
little teasing, critical smile. 

“Have you any objection to telling me your opinion?” 

“None at all,” said Barnes, “but first you ought to do the usual 
thing when people ask a man his opinion about themselves.” 
“What is that?” Dahl had asked, and Barnes had answered: 
“They usually don’t give him time to answer, in their hurry 
to come out with their own valuable views on the subject.” 

“My view is that I am an ass,” said Dahl. 

“That is rather an engaging way of putting it,” said Barnes, 
“and perhaps it is superfluous to ask for your reasons, but all 
the same-” 

“I am religious,” said Dahl, “and I am an unbeliever. I don’t 
believe in God, but I constantly feel impelled to pray to him. I 
read Mrs. Sonne’s books on Christian mysticism and thought to 
myself: Barnes is right! here we have the root of the matter. 
And yet I didn’t know what the root of the matter was; I only 
had a dim presentiment of it, at times something like a foggy 
memory, as though I had once lived through it all and forgotten 
it again. I was given a guide written by the cappellano; I read 

149 



150 The Philosopher's Stone 

it and felt that here was the path to what I was in search of — 
although God, Christ and the Holy Ghost were mentioned on 
every page; and it was not until I found myself getting inwardly 
arid and empty that my total disbelief in the Holy Trinity be¬ 
came clear to me. How on earth I managed to pass any examina¬ 
tion with such a foggy brain is a mystery to me.” 

“It’s the old story,” said Barnes. “If a man has a gift for 
falling in love, his feelings are set in motion by the presence 
of a beautiful woman, even if he is quite aware of her shallow¬ 
ness. And if a man has a religious disposition, he will be brought 
into a devotional mood by religious conceptions, even if a new 
idea of the universe has long since taken their place in his mind. 
Ah, yes, unrequited religious love is a sign of the times we live in; 
for Christianity is a simple-minded old woman. 

“And you, my friend, are a warm-blooded young man, whether 
it’s a question of religion or women. I have followed your do¬ 
ings closely—including the time when you were trying to drown 
the religious instinct in the erotic. You made a damned poor 
hand of it, and you will never do any better, you will never suc¬ 
ceed in becoming religiously impotent. And you may congratulate 
yourself on that. 

“For, if I am right in my view of religious feeling, it is a 
fundamental power in the world, without which spiritual life 
would die out.” 

“There are some who maintain the contrary,” said Dahl, “and 
say that it’s a sign of weakness and unhealthiness.” 

“I know that very well,” said Barnes, “but it doesn’t impress 
me. There are some people who draw no distinction between 
positive religion and religious feeling. I believe I told you once 
that religious feeling is the individual’s sense of his relation to 
‘existence/ ‘the whole/ ‘the universe/ ‘God/ or whatever you 
like to call it. And, like the erotic feeling, it is a natural impulse 
and the same everywhere. I know, of course, that in different 
countries and different ages spooning and marrying are accom¬ 
panied by the observance of various formalities, but I expect the 
result is much the same. It’s quite likely that a European gets 
on better with a white wife than with a brown one, and feels 
more comfortable in a Christian church than in a Buddhist temple. 
But still we constantly find instances of the union of white and 
brown, European and Buddhist. 

“You asked for my opinion about you. In most respects 


Ecstasy 151 

you are a normally gifted Danish student. But, in addition to 
that, you are a person of unusual religious gifts, and you live 
in an age and a country in which religion has lost its significance. 
You cannot escape from your religious instinct, but whether you 
will become the founder of a religion, a plain, harmonious in¬ 
dividual, or a mystery-monger—or possibly a candidate for an 
asylum—why, that remains to be seen.’’ 

‘‘Tell me,” said Dahl after a short pause, “the ‘Professor,’ as 
we called him at home—do you know anything about him?” 

“No—o,” Barnes replied; “he’s a sly old fox, that man, but 
I’m inclined to condemn him on suspicion.” 

“Of what?” 

“Of having, in his own case, solved the religious problem 
in a happy—I would almost say, a blessed way. But he keeps 
his mouth shut and won’t let out the secret. I once tried to 
tackle him about it. And I flatter myself I’m an impudent 
dog and have had some practice in dissecting my fellow-creatures. 
But he just looked at me with a mischievous smile, as though 
he could see clean through me, until I felt as sheepish as a 
schoolboy and found myself blushing at something I have never 
confided to anybody but you.” 

“In the days when I lived in ‘the open,’ ” Dahl said, “he once 
spoke to me as if he knew about it.” 

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” replied Barnes. “But with me he 
was closed. I asked my father whether he knew anything about 
the Professor and his attitude to religion. ‘No,’ said Father, ‘all 
I know is that his religion is always the one which the person 
he happens to be talking to is most in need of.’ 

“And as far as I can make out, he is always quite ready to 
part with it.” . . . 

Next day Dahl was sitting on the sofa with his eyes closed; 
his breathing began to come slowly and regularly, his conscious¬ 
ness seemed to increase in clearness, though his thoughts were as 
though paralysed by a deep loathing of everything that was him¬ 
self. One after another his qualities appeared before him, 
aroused his disgust, and fell to the ground like withered, worthless 
leaves. 

At last they were stilled, and then he had a feeling of dying 
away from himself. 

Profoundly conscious of his own paltriness, he sank into the 


152 The Philosopher’s Stone 

depths of nothingness with a feeling of deliverance, a feeling 
that he would no longer exist. 

His head lay back against the sofa cushion. Anyone coming 
into the room might have supposed him dead. He noticed himself 
that he was breathing slowly, deeply, regularly. He also be¬ 
gan to notice a happy healthiness in his limbs, like that which 
one feels when an illness is losing its strength. It increased to 
a jubilant plenitude of physical delight. 

A tear or two trickled down his cheeks, for the physical de¬ 
light had immediately become transformed into spiritual happiness. 

An unspeakable goodness welled like a flood of light through 
all his being, and he was unable to distinguish between it and 
himself. He felt himself supported by a loving power, which 
supported the whole world, held it up and bore it on, so closely 
united with it that it was impossible to distinguish between life 
itself and this mighty love. 

His feeling of devotion was so profound that he had no thought 
of kneeling or clasping his hands. But he opened his eyes, im¬ 
pelled thereto by the almost overpowering inner light; and then 
he saw that the light was outside him as well as within. 

The whole room lay in radiant light, which cast no shadow, 
and which penetrated tables and chairs so that he seemed to see 
through them. He could not determine whether this all-pervading 
light was the divine love itself or something belonging to it, as 
man’s body belongs to his soul. 

But—as though by the aid of this very light—he saw that 
the mighty love is always present everywhere. 

But that man has succeeded in isolating himself from the con¬ 
sciousness of it by the aid of his self-love. And that no man 
has any suspicion of the strength of his own self-love. 

As near to us as our own breath, and yet so far that we can 
doubt its existence, is God’s love. . . . 

Even when old Martha, his landlady, came into the room, 
she could see the light and thought the place was on fire. 

But when she saw it ascend and vanish away, she clasped 
her hands and bent her white head, and he heard her trustful 
voice say in quiet awe: 

“Was it your mother that was with you? Mercy on us, Mr. 
Daahl, was it herself you saw?” 


Ecstasy 153 

She saw by his smile that he was going to answer no, and 
she made haste to prevent his saying anything ungrateful. 

“Oh, yes, Mr. Daahl, you take my word for it, it was her. 
Why, even I could see the light she took with her when she went. 
And your own face too, it’s as pure as if she’d just borne you 
over again. She’s been here and brought you her blessing. I 
can see it. She’s left a holiness behind her. It’s only a mother’s 
love that can be like that. 

“But it’s yours, and I’m not going to stop here and disturb 
you.” 

She stopped at the door and said awkwardly: 

“Only, you see, I promised the little lady in there to ask if 
you’d come and take tea. Now I’ll tell her you can’t.” 

Dahl got up and went to her. 

“I shall be glad to come,” he said. “She has such a lonely 

time.” 


XXX. Reflected Glory 

H E had no need to tell Mrs. Sonne what had happened. 

When he handed her the red volume, he saw by her ex¬ 
pression that she knew it. 

Even Katharina, who was standing in the middle of the room, 
felt that there was an understanding between those two in the 
window, in which she had no part. She saw her mother being 
gradually transformed into a girl; but a girl whose happy long¬ 
ings had paled into the melancholy of renunciation. A protest 
arose within her against something indefinite—life or men or 
God. 

She saw her mother take the red volume in her hands as 
though it were a holy thing. She heard her say, as though admit¬ 
ting him to a secret chamber she was herself unworthy to enter: 

“You have experienced it. I know it. I have seen it once 
before—in another.” 

She went to the desk and opened the little compartment that 
was always locked. Her back was turned to Katharina, who could 
not see what her mother was doing, until the picture had been 
carefully placed on the writing-table and Mrs. Sonne had let 
go of it with her hands, but not with her eyes. 

Dahl bent down and examined the cappellano’s face, in which 
beauty and piety were so closely united that it was impossible 
to decide whether this was the picture of a pious soul that had 
received a revelation of beauty, or a beautiful character that had 
been intensified by piety. 

Katharina stood at a distance looking on. The picture, Mrs. 
Sonne and Dahl made up a unity in which there was no room for 
her. At last Dahl raised his head, took his eyes, as though with 
an effort, from the picture, and asked: 

“Where is he living now?” 

Mrs. Sonne looked into space. 

“I don’t know,” she said. “At that time he was a young 
cappellano. I met him in Sorrento and afterwards in Rome. We 

i54 


Reflected Glory 155 

saw a great deal of him, my mother and I. Just before we left 
he entered an order. And since then I have heard nothing of 
him or from him. This is his handwriting.” 

She showed Dahl the green Italian volume. 

“So you have carried out the exercises he drew up?” 

Dahl nodded. He was evidently far away, wrapt in his own 
thoughts. His expression was introspective; he seemed entirely 
to have forgotten where he was. 

At last he spoke, almost as if addressing himself, but yet 
in a way that showed he was aware of the presence of others: 

“He entered an order—remained in his Church.—Yes, he was 
a Christian. . . . 

“But I am an unbeliever. And yet I have experienced the 
marvel. God’s love is omnipresent—within the Church and with¬ 
out it. Our religious feeling, not our faith in doctrines, opens 
our minds to it. It follows psychological laws-” 

Mrs. Sonne attentively watched his handsome, youthful face, 
which showed at the moment a solemn loftiness far in advance 
of his years. She saw the soft lines of his mouth grow firm in 
a resolution before he proceeded: 

“To live as a witness that religious feeling in itself —even with¬ 
out the conception of a god—opens the mind to the divine love— 
that is worth living for. 

“To find and point out the laws of the growth and development 
of the religious feeling—this must be the duty of one who, 
living in an age of unbelief and himself an unbeliever, experiences 
the felicity of all religions. 

He looked up at her and said as one whose thoughts were al¬ 
ready outside the door: 

“I must ask you to excuse me. I must go now. I feel the 
need of being alone.” 

He smiled, to give her at least a kind of explanation: 

“You see, I believe at last I’ve found my line of study.” 

A little pressure of the hand, a short nod to both, and he was 
out of the room. 

Neither of them had a thought of seeing him out. 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Sonne thoughtfully, “I’m sure he has found 
his line of study.” 

“What is it?” asked Katharina. 

Mrs. Sonne left her own thoughts to look at her daughter. 


156 The Philosopher’s Stone 

who stood there simply as a young girl who asked a practical 
question. 

“I suppose one would call it—psychology of religion,” she 
said, relapsing into her own life. 

“Then what will he be?” asked Katharina. 

“What will he be?” said Mrs. Sonne within herself, and her 
face had an expression which made Katharina clench her hand 
without knowing it. 

“What will he be?” Mrs. Sonne repeated, without waking or 
extricating herself from her thoughts. “I think he will be a 
blessing to mankind.” 

“Can he live on that?” asked Katharina brutally. 

Her tone tore Mrs. Sonne so violently out of her wandering 

thoughts that it hurt her. She turned to her daughter with 

an icy chill in her eyes, which Katharina seemed to know. That 
look in her mother’s eyes was preserved in her memory, but it 
had not been turned upon her. 

But now Mrs. Sonne turned to the cappcllano’s portrait, and 
Katharina saw in her face the expression that had made her 

clench her hand when they were talking about Dahl. She ap¬ 

proached her mother, and in her attitude, her walk and her voice 
there was a half-restrained scorn, which again seemed familiar 
from someone not herself. 

“Mother—are you quite sure you weren’t in love with that 
-—priest ?” 

The word “priest” especially seemed to her like a ghost going 
through the room. 

Mrs. Sonne gave a start and a faint blush showed in her 
cheeks. 

But she quickly laid hold of her maternal dignity—a little 
exaggerated in her haste—she looked as if her shoes had suddenly 
been given high heels. 

“One does not fall in love with such men as he,” she said. 
“They themselves have no worldly feelings and do not arouse 
them in others.” 

“Oh, don’t they?” said Katharina. “Do you know what it 
is ? It’s hysterics. Lies and hysterics !” 

Mrs. Sonne looked in alarm at her daughter, standing defiantly 
before her. 

“Katharina,” she said after a pause, “you must watch your- 


Reflected Glory 157 

self. \ou are so excitable that I am sometimes afraid of what 
may become of you. You have inherited your father’s tem¬ 
perament.” 

Thank God,” said Katharina, taking up Captain Sonne’s por¬ 
trait from the writing-table. 

“Yes, you’re like your father,” said Mrs. Sonne, as she studied 
the lines of her face. 

"I’m proud of it,” said Katharina, upsetting the cappellcmo as 
she replaced the captain on the table. 

After that she walked to her room with head erect. 

When there, she stood looking out over the lake and tears came 
into her eyes. . . . 

Ever since his ecstatic experience Dahl had had a feeling 
of being surrounded by an invisible but living atmosphere. It 
was as though a remnant of the mighty love which at that moment 
had made the air luminous were still within him and lay about 
him as a gentle, profound sympathy, which had no regard for 
persons, but shone like a ray of sunlight through everyone he 
met. 

When he left Mrs. Sonne with the firm resolution to devote 
his life to the service of the mighty, omnipresent love, his will 
became closely united with it, and he suddenly felt within him¬ 
self a psychic force, the strength of which almost terrified 
him. 

He had no doubt that, with the aid of the living atmosphere 
which surrounded him, he could control the minds of men. 

In fact, he felt certain that if in his thoughts he raised a wall 
in front of that tall lady with the grey hat who was walking 
four or five yards in front of him, she would be unable to move 
a step farther. 

And at that moment he did it, really without reflection, but 
simply intoxicated by the power of his will. 

And it actually was so. The lady stopped abruptly, as though 
she had hit against something. Her whole body swayed help¬ 
lessly, but she could not get on. 

Then he let go his hold of the “wall” he had set up in front 
of her; she moved forward, looked round in bewilderment, and 
walked on. 

He himself stood still, a man ran into him and was abusive, but 


158 The Philosopher’s Stone 

he paid no attention. Now he could scarcely believe what he had 
himself seen and done. Only when the “miracle” had happened 
did he begin to doubt it. 

He could still see the lady ahead of him. But something within 
warned him not to attempt it a second time. 


XXXI. A “Psychical Investigator” 

4t ^T JT OU don’t mind a couple of people coming in this eve- 
ning?” said Nanna Bang, when Dahl came in to tea. 

M “It’s only my cousin, Mr. Adolf Quist, and his wife. 
They looked in at the shop this afternoon and said they’d be here 
at tea-time.—Ah, there’s the bell.” 

She slipped out into the hall, and Dahl heard a gentle woman’s 
voice and a man’s organ that swelled with its owner’s satisfaction. 

Miss Bang introduced them. Dahl had seen the lady’s face 
and figure somewhere or other; in fact, he knew them so well 
that he was surprised to find no sign of recognition in her. He 
had no time to think where he could have met her, as Mr. Quist 
immediately displayed all his conversational talents full in his 
face. 

Adolf Quist was a very talkative man, with a rooted belief 
that words were the same as wisdom. He knew a lot, but his 
knowledge had no grounding; strictly speaking, it consisted solely 
in his own conviction of it. His nimble inquisitiveness extracted 
the juice from everything that came within range of his con¬ 
sciousness and dumped the husks of fact into the storehouse of 
his excellent memory. 

He had been good-looking, but the mirror had exchanged his 
looks for the consciousness of them. Nanna Bang liked him, 
because he had always been “not only amusing but good” Prob¬ 
ably he might really have become the excellent person she con¬ 
sidered him, if he had not for years limited his intellectual 
nutriment to the most vitamin-less revue ditties and newspaper 
articles. 

When he had sufficiently aired his own admirable attractions, 
he brought forward his wife, though Nanna Bang had already 
introduced her. She was a tall and showy woman, as was fit 
and proper in the wife of Adolf Quist. 

He seemed to grow smaller when he stood beside his wife. 
Dahl regarded the couple with wonder. There was something 
ludicrously illogical in their relationship. He was vexed that he 

159 


160 The Philosopher’s Stone 

hadn’t Barnes’s power of ‘‘thinking for himself.” The mutual 
relations of these two people interested him. 

But, at any rate, he had a sense of them, and there was no 
doubt that Quist was the inferior. At the same time, it was 
obvious that he was the master. Quist regarded his wife with a 
swell of pride; she looked at her husband indulgently, with a trace 
of weariness, but it was certain that she always did what he 
wished. Quist’s face beamed with fondness; his wife’s mouth 
had a touch of grey resignation. 

She nevertheless gave the impression of being possessed by a 
deep inner happiness which was connected in some way with her 
husband and explained the fact of her continually submitting to 
him, although she had long known him in and out. 

Dahl was struck by her face, which seemed to have so much 
soul in it; a soul that had been rather laid by, it was true, and 
for which nobody had any particular use. The expressive mouth 
was suggestive not only of strong emotions but of a knowledge 
that life, after all, had nothing but homely fare to offer. The 
blue-grey eyes were strangely observant, as though always pre¬ 
pared to receive orders; their sensitiveness seemed exaggerated. 

When Nanna Bang asked after “little Ingeborg,” a deep light 
came into them, which showed where Mrs. Quist’s life was 
centred. And Quist was little Ingeborg’s father; that was a 
dignity he could never fritter away. 

“But now you must really sit down,” said Nanna Bang. Quist 
at once found an arm-chair; his wife was going to sit on the 
piano stool, but Nanna Bang dashed forward with a scream. 
Mrs. Quist jumped up and looked around in bewilderment. 

As soon as Dahl saw her looking about with no notion of what 
was happening, he recognized her. 

It was the tall lady in the grey hat, whom he had forced to 
stand still in the middle of the street the day before. 

The piano stool was broken, Nanna Bang explained, but Alvilda 
could sit on the sofa beside Dahl. 

By the way in which she seated herself close to him, he felt 
that she took not the slightest interest in his presence. He was 
just an ordinary young sprout, which would one day grow into 
an equally unimportant twig. 

After tea Mrs. Quist began to talk to Nanna Bang about little 
Ingeborg, but Quist was a man of wider interests. He con¬ 
fided to Dahl that he was a psychical investigator. Of course he 


A “Psychical Investigator” 161 

was much too enlightened to be a Christian. Jesus was an 
epileptic, you know, but Crookes and Wallace were men of science, 
and table-legs were full of intelligence. 

Fraudulent mediums, did Mr. Dahl say? No doubt, but they 
were the professional ones, who had to keep up their reputation. 
No, you have to have private, unpaid mediums. He was himself 
engaged in training one—his wife, in fact. Now Mr. Dahl 
should see. 

Mrs. Alvilda had to leave the room. She did it reluctantly, 
but without objection. It succeeded admirably; she found the 
things Nanna had hidden and said what Mr. Dahl had been think¬ 
ing about. Quist was right, she was very receptive of thought- 
transference. But then he was training her scientifically and mak¬ 
ing notes of her progress. They were to be published later: “A 

Medium’s Development.” 

Mrs. Quist had resumed her seat on the sofa and begun to 
talk about little Ingeborg. It suited her so well, Dahl thought. 
But Quist had an idea. He insisted on Dahl thinking of a num¬ 
ber and making Mrs. Alvilda say what it was. Quist could 
see by his eyes that he had “suggestive powers.” 

Dahl saw she was disinclined and wanted to refuse, but when 
she turned her receptive look upon him he was seized with the 
sense of power which sometimes overwhelmed him and plunged 
his eyes, full of will-force, into hers, which were so mild and 
yielding. 

Quist got up and signed to Nanna Bang to keep motionless. 
His wife turned pale, Quist took out his watch, Nanna was 
scared. Dahl was gazing into Mrs. Quist’s pupils and had entirely 
forgotten that he was to think of a number, for as he stared 
into the depths of her eyes her personal attributes vanished. Mrs. 
Alvilda Quist, with her name and address, her education and her 
experience, disappeared as totally as if she had been dead and 
buried, and what was left was something imperishable, a “life” 
or an “instinct,” which seemed to be directed towards a definite 
end, a “life” which had an object. With a feeling approaching 
fear, he was spying about for this object, when he suddenly had a 
palpitation, like a sleeper roused too abruptly: something had 
touched his hand. 

It was her hand, which had been lying on the edge of the 
table and had now fallen, dead and heavy, upon his. 

She started up, put her hand to her heart, stared at him in 


162 The Philosopher’s Stone 

alarm, dropped her eyes again, and hid her face in her hands. 

Quist leaned across the table eagerly. 

“Keep on! Look at him, Alvilda! Keep on, Mr. Dahl! We 
were just going to get a trance. It’s the first time. Try again!” 

But Mrs. Alvilda shook her head decidedly. 

“No, I won’t. I daren’t. I’m frightened. I won’t see’ it 
again!” 

Quist took out his note-book. This was something new. 

“What did you see? Be quick, before it’s gone.” 

Mrs. Alvilda made an effort. Quist began to write. 

“I can’t explain it—I saw Mr. Dahl with nothing on-” 

Quist dropped his pencil. 

“With—what do you say-?” 

“I mean—his body seemed like a suit of clothes he could take 
off, so that I could see himself —oh, it’s so uncanny! It is 
such a terrible responsibility to be alive!” 

“How responsibility?” asked Quist, who had found his pencil 
again. 

Nanna Bang clasped her hands and looked at Dahl, whose eyes 
hung upon Mrs. Quist with a strangely scared look. 

“Responsibility towards—towards what we are designed for,” 
said Mrs. Alvilda. “I won’t think of it any more.” 

She passed her hand over her eyes as though to brush away the 
vision. 

“Just tell us whether you saw anything of this design.” He 
asked, not for the sake of the “design,” but in the cause of 
science. 

His wife gazed before her with a petrified expression which 
made them all wait breathlessly. 

“Yes,” she said at last, “I saw what Mr. Dahl was designed 
for. But I have no words to say what it was—no, I can’t even 
remember it.” She breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s gone. I 
only have a kind of feeling.” 

Quist looked at Dahl over his note-book and forgot to write, 
for Dahl looked as if he knew himself what she had seen. 

Dahl’s and Mrs. Alvilda’s oppressive seriousness infected 
Nanna. “I don’t think we ought to do such things,” she said. 
“And the Bible forbids it.” 

“The Bible’s out of date,” said Quist. 

Mrs. Alvilda wanted to go home to Ingeborg, 



A “Psychical Investigator” 163 

“It’s taken it out of her,” Quist whispered to Dahl. “We’ll 
look in at a variety show on the way. It’ll amuse her.” 

He helped her on with her cloak and joked about the price of 
her clothes. “You don’t know what it costs to be married, Mr. 
Dahl, especially if, like myself, you think a woman ought to 
carry out the scheme right through.” 

He looked at his wife in a way which showed it was not so 
much the exuberence of her feeling as the luxuriance of her per¬ 
son that delighted him. 

When Nanna Bang was left alone her eyes sought the Crucified, 
whom Adolf with his scientific mind had called an epileptic. 

She shuddered and took her rosary from the crucifix, held 
it in her hand for a moment; she had not liked to wear it for 
fear of what the others would say in the shop. 

Now she resolutely hung it round her neck. 


XXXII. Delirium 

A UTUMN had laid its tints on the trees by the lake; the 
/\ water lay calm and silvery white. 

I \ Barnes stopped and breathed in the sharp freshness of 
October in draughts as deep as his lungs could stand. 

‘‘What would I give to be in the garden at home and to put 
a dewy flower into my mouth!” he said. 

Dahl smiled but made no answer; his thoughts were still on 
what they had been talking about. 

The sound of galloping hoofs on the soft riding-track awoke 
him. A lady and gentleman came tearing towards them, their 
horses snorting with delight at the pace. The lady was Katharina 
Sonne; she saw them and nodded as she passed. They took off 
their hats, and Barnes forgot to put his on again: he stood star¬ 
ing after the riders with his hat in his hand. 

“Oh!” he said, as he put on his hat, clenched his hands, and 
stretched out his arms like a man who had just got up. 

“Did you see her?” he said. “Did you see her as they came? 
Did you see how her eyes and the horse’s had agreed to have a 
good time? It was a shame that she recognized us and changed 
into a woman. Before she caught sight of us she was only a 
child having a romping-game with a horse. Look at her back, 
how it swings! Is the gallop in it or in her mount? Nobody 
knows, except her and the horse. She is Captain Sonne’s daughter 
right enough!” 

“Who is the man she’s riding with?” asked Dahl. 

“He?” said Barnes with slight irritation, as though at being 
interrupted. “That’s Nedergaard, a manufacturer, an old friend 
of her father. They are his horses. Look how stiffly he sits, 
the old boy. There’s not much wrong with his knees though. 
I’d give something to be able to ride half as well as he!” 

“Ride!” said Dahl. “Do you want to ride?” 

There was nothing in Barnes’s greyish complexion and frail 
figure to indicate a desire for any form of exercise. 

“Want to?” repeated Barnes. “It seems to me—just now, 

164 


Delirium 165 

at any rate—that it’s far more useful and important to be able 
to ride than to take one’s M.A. in English.” 

Dahl smiled to himself, but Barnes caught him and exclaimed: 

“You think I’m in love with Katharina. Don’t be so sure of 
that. Maybe I am in love, but possibly not with her. Maybe 
it is with her and nobody else, but then perhaps it isn’t love, 
but more likely affectionate envy. 

“What a couple of softies we are, you and I! Here we’ve 
been spoiling this glorious morning with our metaphysical rumi¬ 
nations. And then a young girl comes racing along, a girl with 
red blood in her veins, right down to her finger-nails, making 
them into rose-leaves. She doesn’t worry herself about death 
or the riddle of the universe any more than the animal she’s 
riding. 

“The riddle of the universe! And I can’t solve it anyhow. 
But I’m not strong enough to climb up on the back of her horse 
if it was standing still, and it would cost me my life if it started 
to run with me.” 

He stopped and gazed after the riders, who had reached the 
far end of the road and were disappearing at a walk as they 
turned the corner. 

Who was it he looked like? Where was it Dahl had seen that 
look of longing? He mused over it with his eyes on Barnes, 
but that only disturbed his memory. He gave up trying to 
remember, but the moment he took his eyes off Barnes’s face it 
was gone, leaving nothing but the longing look in the eyes of 
another. 

Tine’s! That was how she used to stand gazing into the far 
distance at anything beautiful. He had a sudden feeling that, 
in spite of all their confidences, there was a deep gulf between 
Barnes and him, and Barnes’s next words emphasized it 
clearly: 

“You have learnt that God is love, you have experienced the 
divine love in such a way that you could almost take hold of it 
and feel it. I suppose I ought to bow down in the dust before 
you and rejoice in your experience while envying you. And 
perhaps I do. At any rate, I envy you your handsome face and 
your good physique. 

“Divine love! A healthy human love appeals to me more and 
seems to me more wonderful. That God loves his creatures, 
even such a one as I, well, that ought to be a matter of course 


166 The Philosopher’s Stone 

for gods. But if a human being, still more a fresh and healthy 
woman, could love me, I should feel it as a miracle and accept 
it as such. ,, 

Dahl did not answer. Not until they had arrived at the gate 
of the college did he say slowly: 

“A ‘healthy human love' is—a lie. It is instinct in disguise. 
Nothing else. 

“I once knew a young woman—the first to reveal ‘woman’ to 
me—and I possessed her in a happy intoxication. I was not 
thinking much about the woman herself, but the intoxication was 
deep. Now she is married, and has children, whom she loves— 
well, I’m sure she’s fond of her husband too. But I have met 
her since, and I tell you, I could have taken her as she stood 
there among all those she loved—because her instinct pointed 
to me.” 

“Then it must be you she loves,” said Barnes. 

“Loves!” repeated Dahl. “Do I love her? I know perfectly 
well I don’t, and yet I sometimes think I shall never be rid of 
her. There are moments when I am tempted to go straight to 
the railway station, make for her home, and take her in my arms, 
though I know it would ruin her life with her children and their 
father.” 

“But if you abstain from doing it,” said Barnes, “isn’t that 
precisely from love of her?” 

“No,” answered Dahl, “it’s from fear of acting wrongly . 

“And then all the others that I knew, at the time I was leading 
a loose life—don’t you think I felt, at any rate, sympathy for 
them, so long as I was impelled towards them? And what was 
it after all! 

“And she, whose nature I am condemned to see in every 
young woman-” 

“Then you love her,” Barnes interrupted. 

“I hate her, if anything,” said Dahl, “for destroying my 
harmony with my own inmost nature. I can only live happily in 
the state of pure innocence which was Lillebror’s and mine.” 

“You are grown up now,” said Barnes. 

“Do you think that’s an obstacle?” retorted Dahl. “Isn’t 
that pure innocence still alive in me as my own inmost nature? 
The sexual impulse is its worst enemy, and that I have learnt 
to fear and abhor, whether it shows itself in its naked coarseness 
or in the ravishing disguise of love.” 



Delirium 167 

“I believe I understand you,” said Barnes. “I myself was 
a celestial blue inside, one summer day. It didn’t last long. 
And now my hopes are a more earthly green. But do you 
intend to avoid every woman you meet on earth?” 

“Yes; I have seen another love,” said Dahl. “And it brooks 
no rival.” 

Barnes looked down at the pavement. Then he gave a little 
laugh which Dahl had heard before on an examination day, 
when Barnes thought his Latin translation was no good, and 
was suddenly told it was the best. 

“I can’t help liking you, Dahl,” he said. “And it isn’t only 
because you’re happily mad. 

“And if your madness should end in wisdom, if the religious 
feeling should help you to find the philosopher’s stone and found 
a new and good religion, then I will be the first of your disciples 
in the ranks. 

“But now I must go in and do some work.” 

He ran in through the gate, and Dahl walked slowly home. 

He had not been sitting many minutes when old Martha came 
in with a tray. 

“I thought you might like a drop of coffee,” she said. “May 
I sit and watch you drink it? I badly want something nice to 
look at after all the devilry in there.” 

She gave a toss of the head in the direction of the opposite 
room. DahLasked if there was anything special the matter. 

“Why, don’t you know? Don’t you know that Crooked 
Susanna, as Miss Bang calls her—and crooked she is, too— 
that she’s taken ill?” 

“Is it serious?” asked Dahl. 

Old Martha looked at him rather sceptically. 

“Can’t you guess what it is? You must have seen that she 
drank!” 

“Then is it-” 

“Yes, it’s the horrors. She gets wild at times. She’s knocked 
out three or four of her sister’s teeth, and she was deaf to start 
with, and now she can’t chew either. And then the things she 
says! You wouldn’t think a person could have so much filth 
in her mouth. When the fits come on her, I mean. And then 
she gets so angry, you never saw! I sometimes think it must 
be the devil himself that’s shaking her up, it gives me such a 



168 The Philosopher’s Stone 

turn. Would you like to look at her? She's quiet just now. 
But finish your coffee in peace first.” 

Soon after, they went together to the room where “Crooked 
Susanna” lay in a doze and did not notice them at first. 

“No, it don’t smell nice,” said old Martha. “She won’t let us 
open the window. She says the other one can’t bear it.” 

“The other one?” 

“Yes, it’s somebody that goes for her and that she’s mortally 
afraid of. It’s when ‘the other one’ comes that the trouble 
begins.” 

Crooked Susanna opened her eyes. 

“The other one’s gone,” she said. 

“Deaf Anna” had seen Dahl go in and now came herself, 
curious to know what he might have to say. She was flustered 
as usual, held her hand before her toothless mouth, and uttered 
her embarrassed “Ho-ho,” a mixture of obsequious laughter and 
anything she might be expected to say when she hadn’t heard a 
word. 

Crooked Susanna looked at her damaged mouth. 

“It was the other one that did it,” she said sorrowfully. “You 
d—don’t think I should do a thing like that to my own s— 
sister ?” 

“Ho-ho,” nodded Deaf Anna, who only knew that something 
had been said to her, but dared not bring her ears any nearer. 

“Who is the other one?” asked Dahl cautiously. 

Crooked Susanna looked at him a moment and then answered 
confidentially: 

“It’s somebody that comes and tries to drive me out of myself. 
She says there isn’t room for me in me, because it’s her that’s 
going to be me. She says she’s a woman, but after what she’s 
been trying to do to me, I believe she’s a man.” 

“Hush, hush,” said old Martha, wagging her hand, “don’t let’s 
talk about that.” 

“Yes, but she does,” insisted Crooked Susanna; “it’s down¬ 
right-” 

Old Martha drowned the word by blowing her nose vigorously. 

“Come away,” she said to Dahl. “It’s a shame to listen to 
the things she says in all innocence. 

“It’s a sad thing to see what she’s come to,” she said out in 
the passage. “And she was once such a sweet and good little 
thing. If her nurse hadn’t gone and dropped her and made 


Delirium 169 

a cripple of her, perhaps she might have been a decent sober 
body. Ah, life isn’t all it might be!” 

Before Dahl had reached his room or Martha her kitchen, 
Deaf Anna came shouting: 

“Auntie, Auntie!” 

“There, bless my soul,” sighed the old woman, “if it hasn’t 
come back again!” 

She trotted into the bedroom and Dahl followed her. 

Crooked Susanna was writhing on her bed; her arms jerked 
spasmodically, her shoulders jumped up and down, her face was 
transformed and uglier, she looked older and full of suppressed 
spitefulness. For a while it seemed as if she was resisting and 
trying to defend her reason, but all at once she gave in, and 
with a bound, incredible in its elasticity, she stood upright on 
her bed. 

“Goodness me, don’t look at her, Mr. Daahl!” said old Martha. 
“She wants washing, but we haven’t been able to get at her.” 

It was a sad trial for Deaf Anna, who had some leanings 
towards piety and went to church every Sunday, though she 
couldn’t hear a word and simply sat watching the parson. She 
blushed and was ashamed to look at Dahl or at her sister, because 
of his presence, or even at her aunt, because she might have 
asked her to look after Crooked Susanna, and she couldn’t do 
that when there was a man in the room. 

She danced about in bashful perplexity, but suddenly made 
a dash for the bed and shouted, as though her sister was as 
deaf as herself: 

“Lie down, Susanna! Lie down at once!” 

The crooked one sang, not from gaiety but from spite, to 
increase her sister’s confusion: 

“Joachim of Babylon, he had a wife Susanna-” 

“Ah,” sighed the aunt, “she may well say Babylon! Lord 
save us! There now!” 

Deaf Anna had come too near. With a strength and 
accuracy worthy of a boxer, Susanna hit her in the eye. 

“Poor soul,” said old Martha, “she won’t have one of her 
senses left to her!” 

She put her arm round the deaf niece and led her to the door. 

“No, I durstn’t leave her,” she shouted. “You go into the 


170 The Philosopher’s Stone 

kitchen and bathe it in cold water.—The wretch!” She shook 
her fist at the figure on the bed. 

But Dahl’s pity had deserted the victim for the assailant. 
He recalled her humility and remorse over her sister’s teeth: 
“It wasn’t me, it was the other one.” 

A will—which seemed to come from something outside 
himself—to see Crooked Susanna made peaceable and humble 
and good again, caused him to advance towards her. 

The old aunt shouted a warning: 

“Don’t you go too near, Mr. Daahl! They have the strength 
of three when they’re out of their senses.” 

He could not understand his deep sympathy for Crooked 
Susanna, he only felt it and followed it. But this very sym¬ 
pathy seemed to arouse the cripple’s fury. 

“Get away!” she shrieked, and her eyes shone with hate. He 
meekly received their exasperated look in his own. And then 
began a battle, eye against eye, without either of the combatants 
moving a muscle. 

Old Martha stared at them with an uncanny feeling that the 
struggle was between forces from the world of spirits. 

“If only his mother would help him,” she sighed piously. 

It seemed that the cripple had become a clairvoyante and read 
his thoughts. 

“You think you’re sent by God,” she cried to Dahl, “but 
you’re a devil, that’s what you are!” 

He scarcely heard her words, but he felt her thoughts. All 
his psychic powers were directed upon her in a concentration so 
close that he positively felt his own mind wrestling with hers and 
sensed as though by contact, every vibration of it. It appeared 
to him that their bodies stood open and exposed them to influ¬ 
ences, evil and good, from a hyperphysical world. Perhaps he 
was not far from being as mad as Crooked Susanna, whose 
excitement infected him, but he was the stronger and he could 
feel her power of resistance weakening. 

Just as he thought it was broken, she sprang up with a bound 
and pointed out into the room without taking her eyes off him, 
laughing with satisfaction. 

“You think you’ve won! But it’s only for a time. There’s 
one waiting for you. One of the black ones yonder. He won’t 
do it yet. He says it’s too soon. But he’ll get you. It won’t be 
God, it’ll be the devil that takes you!” 


Delirium 171 

At that instant he believed himself that he had lost his reason, 
for he thought he saw everything the cripple described. There 
was a black figure standing where she pointed; he did not see it 
but knew that it was there. It transmitted a current of poisonous 
power to the cripple, and through her it penetrated him and 
paralysed his soul and his body; in a moment he would behave 
exactly like her. 

He heard old Martha’s voice: 

“Our Father, which art in heaven, deliver us from evil!” 

The old prayer, which he had so often repeated when he was 
afraid and had to sleep alone in the dark, touched something 
helplessly innocent deep within him. He was nothing, could 
do nothing, but had a strong desire to be good and be saved. 
He had a feeling like one waking from a nightmare. 

Susanna was still standing there, Susanna who was ill. An 
infinite goodness descended upon him, as though from above. 
If only she might be herself again! He had no thought of 
compelling her, was simply filled with goodness for her; it 
could not even have been his own goodness: it was much 
better than he. 

The cripple stared at him. The look of hate became one of 
wonder, the wonder changed to shyness, the shyness to a feeling of 
shame; she lay down and crept under the bed-clothes. But she 
continued to look up at Dahl, and gradually her eyes cleared. 

The aunt went up to her and asked in a low voice: 

“Do you feel better?” 

The cripple gave her a friendly look. 

“It was Mr. Dahl th—that helped me,” she said; “he m—made 
it go away.” . . . 

She acquired a firm belief in Dahl. Whenever she began to 
be afraid of “the other one,” she asked her aunt to go and 
fetch Dahl. When he came and sat in her room, she felt calm. 

But one day she had fever, her temperature rose rapidly, and 
before they knew where they were, Crooked Susanna was cold 
for ever. 

Old Martha came into Dahl’s room and told him. 

“Well, now she’s dead,” she said, drying her eyes; “she won’t 
have to struggle any more. 

“It’s strange when I think of the time she was alive—it seems 
like it was all wasted. A queer changeling she’s been all her 
days, except just when she was a little girl, and then the last 


172 The Philosopher’s Stone 

week of her life. It was just as if we knew her again as she 
was when she was little. She was so meek and mild, and she 
made us do all the things she wouldn t hear of before. She 
asked to be washed all over, and she was too. But it s my 
belief it was that that killed her. For I must tell you—but 
you won’t tell anybody else, will you?—just as we were scrubbing 
and scouring her, she took it into her head that the window must 
be opened, and nothing would please her till Deaf Anna went 
and opened it, more’s the pity. 

“For it’s my firm belief that Susanna got too much fresh air 
and washing all at once and that’s what she died of. For, you 
see, it was inflammation of the lungs that killed her, the 
doctor said. 

“Well, it was the best thing for her to be taken away from us. 
Only it’s a pity it couldn’t have waited till the colour had gone 
out of her sister’s eye; for it won’t do for her to go to the 
funeral looking like that. . . . 

“But you, Mr. Daahl, you’ve been chosen by our Lord to do 
some good in the world; I’ve known that ever since the day 
when your mother came to see you. And it was you that drove 
the evil spirit out of the poor crippled girl, so that she could 
die in peace like her own self.” . . . 

The belief that he was chosen was not strange to Dahl; the 
events of his life seemed to confirm it. 

But he had begun to feel tired and empty, as though his spiritual 
surplus was exhausted. He awaited a recurrence of the ecstasy, 
but it did not come. His longing to feel the blissful joy in his 
heart and to see it reflected in his face became more and more 
ardent. At last he resumed the cappellano’s exercises with 
impatient zeal. 


XXXIII. Divorce 


H ELEN URUP sat at her window looking over the 
square. 

There stood Frederik VII and sail-maker Berg. 
There was nothing else. 

She went on with her embroidery and looked again. 

Still the same empty square. 

She bent over her embroidery, which was turning out quite 
nicely. Her mother was to have it. 

There was a sound of steps out in the square. Country steps 
evidently, not quite on good terms with the paving-stones. She 
looked again. 

It was Peter Murer, pretty Tine’s husband. He walked 
slowly with bent head, stopped outside the doctor’s door, took 
his hat off, scratched his head, put his hat on again, walked back 
past Helen’s windows, turned and trudged with loitering steps 
up to the doctor’s door, stood still, took his courage in both 
hands, and went in. 

There was somebody with the doctor. Peter sat in the waiting- 
room, got tired of sitting still, stood up and took a few paces, 
but the room was too small, sat down again and began to sweat 
with waiting. 

At last it was his turn. 

“Are you ill?” asked the doctor. 

No, there was nothing wrong with Peter. 

“It’s my wife,” he said. “But she doesn’t know I’m here.” 
“What’s the matter with her?” 

Peter raised his eyes shamefacedly and looked at the doctor 
in shy dejection. 

“She’s melancholy,” he said. 

“Do you mean that she is mentally deranged?” asked the 
doctor. 

“No, not exactly deranged,” said Peter, “but just what you’d 
call— melancholy” 

How did it show itself? 


173 


174 The Philosopher’s Stone 

‘‘Why, this way: she’s lost her spirits and keeps on brooding 
to herself. And once or twice I’ve seen that she’s been crying.” 

Peter’s voice grew thick when he said “crying,” and he had 
to swallow once or twice before he could go on: 

“There are some days when she looks as if she was downright 
afraid of me. I can’t make it out at all, because I’ve never done 
anything to her.” 

“Do you want me to come and look at her ?” asked the doctor. 

Peter hesitated a little; but if he couldn’t get a piece of advice 
without it- 

“That’ll be the best way, I suppose,” he said. “But be a little 
careful about saying it was me that asked you. Couldn’t you 
have met me by accident and asked after her, like?” 

Yes, the doctor could do that, and would call when he was 
passing. 

Soon after, Helen heard Peter’s step passing the window 
again. 

If only she could get the embroidery finished for her mother’s 
birthday! Her mother was still the central point in her life. 

There was strangely little of a married look about Helen. 
She had just the same face as when she was quite a young girl, 
except that the expectant look had vanished. When she was 
married she was still in bud, but just ready to burst out, like a 
beech on the approach of spring. It only wants something to 
happen in the weather, and the miracle is there. But perhaps the 
something' does not come, and then you have to wait. Still 
nothing happens, spring has gone somewhere else, and at last 
you forget to expect the miracle; there can’t be anything after 
all. 

Helen looked again across the square. Berg and Frederik VII 
were in their places. There was nothing else. 

It was a shame they had moved the old time-worn pump; now 
there was nothing left but paving-stones. 

It was getting on for dinner-time. Urup must be home soon—■ 
that is, if he was coming. 

He came. He was in deep thought, chattered volubly, then 
dropped into silence, pulled himself together, went on chattering, 
and made many local jokes. 

“By the way, I’ve got to have a talk with you,” he said sud¬ 
denly in the middle of it all; “but it can wait till we’re having 
our coffee.” 


Divorce 175 

Then he fell silent and thought things over. 

He had inherited his father’s business and also his habits. 
He was a devil for girls. He knew no qualms of conscience. 
In a town like this a man had to take to something, and for 
his part he preferred women to the bottle. But that didn’t mean 
he objected to taking a drop with the girl. Of course all this 
had nothing to do with Helen. It was not the wife’s business. 

But now he’d taken up with the daughter of Mortensen of the 
cigar-shop, and she was a regular devil of a girl. She had it 
all in her, all the others rolled into one. But she’d got the con¬ 
founded idea into her head that she wanted to be married. With¬ 
out that it was all off. And as mistress of the house, and that sort 
of thing, he preferred Helen. But what was he to do? A girl 
like Mortensen’s daughter was not one to let slip—especially in 
such a hole of a town, and, above all, he was—most decidedly— 
not going to let anybody else snap her up. 

And now he had to ask Helen what she thought about getting 
a divorce. 

Divorce?! Helen didn’t understand a word of it. Whatever 
for? 

Perhaps she thought they had an amusing time? 

Amusing-? N—o. 

“Well, then, are you fond of me?” He couldn’t deny himself 
the small satisfaction of hearing it, though it was unwise just at 
the moment. 

“Fond of you?” Helen thought for a moment. “Why, you’re 
my husband.” 

He was a little disappointed, but consoled himself with the 
thought that there couldn’t be so many obstacles to the divorce 
as he had feared. 

But supposing he were not her husband, did she think she 
would be any less happy on that account? 

Helen had really never thought about that and didn’t intend 
to now either. If one was married, one was married, and one had 
no business to be criticizing and wondering whether it was better 
to be married or not. 

Yes, but now he insisted on her thinking about it. 

So Helen dutifully went home to her mother and told her. 

Bjerg the lottery-collector was there, but there was no harm 
in Uncle Hans’ hearing it. 

“Do you want to get rid of him?” he asked. 



176 The Philosopher’s Stone 

Helen looked at him in surprise. 

“No,” she said. It shot out of her mouth as a matter of 
course. 

“Then keep him,” said Bjerg. “He can’t get a divorce with¬ 
out your consent.” 

Helen went home and said she wouldn’t. 

Urup went to see Clara Mortensen. 

“She won’t,” he said. 

“Then good-bye,” said Clara. 

“Wait till to-morrow,” said Urup. 

Then he went home to Helen and said he’d been outrageously 
unfaithful to her. 

It was a minute or two before Helen really understood what 
he meant. 

“Have you been—unfaithful to me?” she said at last, with 
a mixture of surprise and doubt. 

“Oh, damn it all,” said Urup, “are you a perfect idiot? Haven’t 
you guessed it ?” 

She shook her head. 

“Then, by Jove, you’re the only person in the town that hasn’t,” 
said Urup. “But now you know it—will you have a divorce 
now?” 

Well, this was another matter. In case of infidelity one did 
get a divorce. It was evidently the only thing to do. 

Urup hurried to Clara Mortensen. 

“My word, she’s a queer specimen,” he said. “She didn’t 
turn a hair when she heard I’d deceived her, but I’d no sooner 
said it than she was ready for a divorce.” 

Helen had not had the slightest inkling of her husband’s in¬ 
fidelity. Her mother’s bringing-up had taken good effect. What 
she ought not to see, she did not see. Well protected by her 
own innocence, she had seen nothing at home as a child, and 
it no more occurred to her to doubt Urup’s fidelity than it would 
have done to think ill of her own mother; and as she had no 
women friends, there was nobody to enjoy the pleasure of open¬ 
ing her eyes. 

But now she had to go home once more with this fresh piece 
of news. 

Her mother started to talk in a velvety way: she “didn’t think, 

after all-,” “one might overlook-,” and really one had more 

influence over a man when he’d been guilty- 




Divorce 177 

But here she came up against her own scrupulous bringing-up 
of her daughter. 

Helen was not to be shaken. For it was not a question of 
forgiveness. Urup did not repent, he intended to go on as he was 
doing. She knew all about his life now. And Uncle Hans knew 
all about it too, she could see that. 

Then Uncle Hans undertook to arrange the affair in such a way 
that Helen would not be imposed upon. 

Urup wriggled and tried to get off cheaper, but could not get 
over the fact that there would be no divorce without his wife’s 
consent. And Bjerg “represented” Helen. But he was willing 
to accept either a divorce in the courts for infidelity or separa¬ 
tion on account of incompatibility of temper. 

No, leave it at separation; that ran its course without any 
fuss. 

Bjerg came back to Helen’s mother with excellent terms for 
a separation and got his reward. 

Helen would have preferred to go home to her old room 
with the window looking on to the harbour; but both Bjerg and 
her mother thought that, now her eyes were beginning to be 
opened, they might easily be too keen. Helen was given her own 
little flat to live in, down near the harbour, with a view over 
the friendly sound. 

Although she had no need to trouble about ways and means, 
she took a place in the office of the biggest lawyer in the town. 
Day after day she went to and from her work unchanged in her 
girlish nature and purity of mind. In her leisure she lived her 
own quiet life—a fine and delicate little flower growing undis¬ 
turbed among refuse-heaps. 


XXXIV. Melancholy 

D R. LOHSE had been to look at Tine. With irreproach¬ 
able diplomacy he had explained to her that in con¬ 
versation at the garden-gate Peter had happened to re¬ 
mark that her spirits were “low,” so he had thought he might 
as well look in. If it was a case of an illness coming on, it was 
best to take it in time. 

Yes, that might be quite right, thought Tine, but that was 
all Lohse got out of her. 

“Well,” he said to Peter, “I’m hanged if I know any more 

than when I came. If she won’t say anything, why- At 

any rate, there’s nothing wrong with her physically, that’s cer¬ 
tain. But she is melancholy, that’s clear, and there’s something 
in her look which might mean that her mind—h’m—might become 
unbalanced. We must try to get her to say what it is that 
troubles her. As she keeps me, a stranger, altogether at a dis¬ 
tance, it can’t very well be religious scruples or anything of that 
sort; but perhaps you could get her to talk. Try it and then 
come and see me. And see about keeping her amused.” 

“Do you think there’s a danger of downright insanity?” asked 
Peter anxiously. 

“It depends what you call danger,” said Lohse. “Nothing 
actually impending, you needn’t be afraid of that. If I take it 
seriously, it is only because I hate seeing a young and healthy 
woman filling her head with fancies. Weeds must be rooted 
up in time, in a human mind just as much as in a garden. Talk 
to her and find out, and then we’ll soon get the sick look out 
of her eyes.” 

“Then she is sick?” thought Peter in alarm, trying to spy out 
how much lay behind the doctor’s words. 

And when he began to examine her closely, he could himself 
see the sick look in her eyes, and after a fortnight’s vain struggle 
to win her confidence, it appeared also in his own. His fear 
that her melancholy might develop into real insanity kept him 
awake at night, and at last, in a long night of brooding, the de- 

178 



Melancholy 179 

spairing truth dawned on him that he was suffering from hope¬ 
less love for his wife. 

Next morning he put on his best clothes to go to town and 
see the doctor. The word “specialist” ran in his head; he would 
ask Dr. Lohse if he ought to take her to Copenhagen to see one. 

As it happened, he had promised the Professor to go and repair 
a hen-house that day, but now he couldn’t wait any longer before 
seeing the doctor. He asked Tine to go across and tell the Pro¬ 
fessor he couldn’t come till the next day, he had important 
business in town. . . . 

The Professor was basking in the March sunshine; he kicked 
the hen-house with the toe of his boot and wondered why the 
mischief Peter Murer couldn’t keep his promise. 

Then the garden-gate clicked, and Tine came in with her eyes 
on the ground and a mechanical step, as though her soul was 
far away and had left her body to walk in its sleep. 

When the Professor greeted her she looked up with an ex¬ 
pression which seemed to say: “Well, here I am”; whereupon 
she tried to think what she had come for. She found it, and her 
eyes became quite awake as she gave Peter’s message of excuse. 

Well, that would be all right, said the Professor, and then 
there was no more to be said; but evidently Tine didn’t quite 
know how to leave the garden again. There seemed to be some¬ 
thing she wanted, and yet didn’t quite want, or perhaps couldn't. 

But he could give her time and see what would happen. 

“What do you say to a cup of coffee, now you’re here?” the 
Professor asked. 

“Thanks,” said Tine. 

And so they went indoors. Tine sat at the table thinking, 
while the Professor warmed the coffee, chatted, and brought out 
cups. 

“There you are.” 

Tine stirred her cup. 

“When Peter comes to-morrow,” she said suddenly, “couldn’t 
you say something to him from me?” 

“Yes, I could,” the Professor answered willingly, refusing to 
wonder at the roundabout way. 

Tine stirred her cup and drew a deep breath. 

“The Urups have been separated,” she said absently. 

The Professor knew this well enough, but he feigned surprise 
to get Tine to talk and say what she knew about it. 


i8o The Philosopher’s Stone 

She did so and concluded her tale by saying, without any 
transition: 

“What I want you to say to Peter to-morrow is whether he 
will agree to our being divorced. I can’t ask him this myself, 
when he’s there looking at me and feeling sorry about it,” she 
added, when he said neither yes nor no. 

“N—o,” admitted the Professor slowly, “of course you can’t— 
if you’re fond of him.” 

His eyes searched Tine’s face, but there was nothing that pro¬ 
tested against his assumption that she was fond of Peter. 

“Well, I’ll talk to Peter about it,” he said. 

“Thanks,” said Tine. 

“You’re forgetting your coffee,” said the Professor. 

“Thanks,” said Tine, and took a sip. 

The Professor got up, took a cigar, and walked slowly up and 
down at the far end of the room. Tine sat by herself at the table. 

For a while no other sound was heard but the Professor’s step; 
at last his voice came from the corner, with a note of reflection: 

“But now I think it would be best if I could persuade Peter 
that it’s the best arrangement for both of you. For it isn’t 
going to please him.” 

“No,” said Tine at the table. 

Again the sound of the Professor’s step, and then came his 
voice once more: 

“It would be best if I knew something of your reasons—not 
because I need tell him of them—but to give me an idea of what 
to say to him.” 

“It’s because I’m not worthy of him,” said Tine. 

“Wha—at ?” 

“I sin against him every day.” 

She bent her head over her coffee-cup and did not see the 
Professor’s look of whimsical doubt, but she heard the candid 
admission in his voice: 

“Ah—of course you can’t get on.—What do you mean by— 
sin?” 

“I think about someone else,” she said softly. 

The Professor observed her from his corner. 

The sun fell upon her face, but the shadow of the window- 
frame was over her eyes with their long black lashes. She 
had not the look of a peasant girl. She had become one with 
the beauty, at once clear and dreamy, of the scenery amid which 


Melancholy 181 

they all lived without really being aware of it. It was im¬ 
possible to detach her from it. It surrounded her with a gleam 
of poetry in witness that she could never be vulgarized. 

“This other one,” said the Professor, “is he a nice man—an 
educated man, I mean?” 

He waited anxiously for the answer, for it appeared to him 
both natural and incredible that it should be so. 

Tine nodded. 

The Professor began to walk again. 

“And then you would marry him?” he asked. 

Tine drew herself up sharply. 

“No,” she said firmly. She felt the Professor’s surprise and 
added: 

“I can’t get him. And even if I could, I wouldn’t—for my 
children’s sake.” 

“Ah,” said the Professor from his corner. “Of course you 
are fond of your children?” 

“-love them,” whispered Tine. He could scarcely hear the 

words, but he saw that her eyes were flowing over. 

“Then couldn’t you stay with Peter?” he said. “For that 
sin you spoke of, it’s-” 

“It’s not the only one,” said Tine. 

“Now you had better tell me all,” said the Professor. 

“Yes, I will,” Tine answered, taking out her handkerchief. “I 
—I—feel a loathing for him.” The handkerchief went up to her 
face. 

“Is he—unkind to you?” asked the Professor warily. 

“He is nothing but kind,” said Tine. 

“Tell me,” said the Professor, coming nearer the table; “this 
other man—when did you meet him?” 

“It was—a long time ago,” said Tine. 

“How—well did you know him?” 

Tine bowed her head and blushed. 

“A long time ago, you said. Was it before you were married?” 

“Yes.” 

“But you were married all the same?” 

“I was fond of Peter.” 

“More than of the other?” 

“Yes, I think so. More in a—in a real sort of way.” 

“And you were happy after you were married ?” 

“Yes. At first.” 




182 The Philosopher’s Stone 

The Professor sat down at the table opposite her. He re¬ 
membered the time well, when Peter carried off the girl whom all 
the young fellows of the parish dreamed of. Of course it had to 
be the smart young mason with his clean hands and his neat 
clothes. 

He seated himself comfortably in his chair. A familiar feel¬ 
ing of satisfaction came over him. He was in his element, for 
now he had reached the stage when his sympathy ceased to be 
human and became artistic. His thoughts worked with Tine and 
Peter Murer and their fate as a sculptor’s hands with the clay. 

“I suppose you would prefer to have the children when you’re 
separated from Peter?” 

“Well, I’m their mother.” 

“What is Peter like with the children?” 

“He makes much of them—and they of him,” she said frankly. 

“Then it’s rather hard on him,” said the Professor, “and not 
very good for the children either, to have to do without their 
father.” 

“Then I shall have to lose them,” said Tine. 

“It will be still worse for them to do without their mother,” 
he replied. 

Tine looked up at him in expectation. 

“But you insist on being divorced, whether the children go one 
way or the other?” 

“Yes.” It was said gloomily, but with no hesitation. 

“Then we must think of the children in the arrangement.— 
Would you be prepared to live under the same roof with Peter, 
when once you are separated? Then, you see, the children need 
know nothing, and they would still be living with both parents.” 

Tine thought for a moment. This possibility had not occurred 
to her. 

“Yes, I could do that,” she said, “when once I was separated.” 

“Then perhaps it can all be arranged quietly. There’s no 
need for people to hear about it.” 

Tine looked at him incredulously, but her eyes showed relief. 
“Can it be done quietly?” she asked. “I thought the authori¬ 
ties-” 

“The authorities don’t go blabbing about people’s private af¬ 
fairs,” said the Professor. “It all depends on Peter. I mean, 
if he will consent—to this way. But you said just now he was 
good.” 


Melancholy 


183 


“He is,” said Tine. 

“It’s a blessing for children,” said the Professor, “if their 
mother thinks their father is good.” 

Tine’s handkerchief went up to her eyes. 

“You must see that you go on thinking so,” said the Professor. 

Tine nodded. 

“It would be easier if you remembered Peter as he was at 
the time he was courting you, and always tried to see him like 
that.” 

Tine shook her head. “That’s all over; even if I wanted to, 
I couldn’t.” 

“We were talking about the children,” said the Professor. 
“Are they always pleased to see their father—or do they vary?” 

“They are always pleased to see him.” 

“Whether it’s Sunday or week-day?” 

“Of course.” Tine began to think rather less of the Professor, 
if he could ask such questions. 

“Well, but, I mean, it must make a difference if he comes 
and plays with them in his best clothes or all covered with plaster 
from his work.” 

“But he’s always their father,” said Tine. 

“Of course,” the Professor nodded to himself; “he’s always 
Peter.” 

Tine gave a start. 

“Aren’t you going to speak to him about the divorce, after 
all?” she said. Her eyes questioned him sharply. 

He looked surprised. 

“I told you I would,” he answered, and added to clinch the 
matter: “After what you’ve told me, you can't go on living 
with him as his wife.” 

“Thank you,” said Tine. “I think the same.” 

“I’ll talk to him to-morrow,” the Professor concluded. “It 
will be best for you to say nothing to him. I don’t think he 
need know anything about—the other. Now finish your coffee.” 

She did so out of duty. When she left, it was with a feeling 
of relief, though not of happiness. 

The Professor sat down by the window and gazed into space 
with one eye screwed up and the other opened wide. This was 
a sign that he was working intensely and seriously, but did not 
take his task too solemnly. 


XXXV. Rustic Idyll 


HE afternoon clouds were gathering, the breeze dozed 
off into a calm. 



The Professor lounged in his window, watching the 
work come to a standstill in one field after another. Horses were 
taken out, machines left standing in repose. Men and beasts 
moved gravely over the soil in unconscious communion with it. 
Their work was done, they were now going home, and as they 
went they lingered, as it were, in the middle of it all. They had a 
look of leaning against the air surrounding them. Weariness 
gave way to a deep sense of well-being, which possessed the 
whole body. . . . 

The gates were shut, all were now indoors, even the roads had 
nothing left to do. All nature was relaxed in a deep exhalation. 
As though at a signal, every bird uttered its last chirp and was 
silent. . . . 

Now and then figures appeared at the gates. The sun, now 
below the horizon, still lingered in their eyes; the contentment of 
leisure hours was in their faces and in all their limbs. 

They gathered in little groups, each with its own interest. 

And Ellen Nielsen and Hans Olsen had theirs, as they stood 
looking over the land which belonged to Niels Jakob’s farm¬ 
house. For they had now arrived at the point when they were 
able to buy it, and so their banns were to be put up. 

Yes, next Sunday their names would be pronounced together 
from the pulpit over there in the church. Their eyes sought 
the church-tower; and their feet began to move in that direction 
—as they had done so many times before. They could never 
be tired of walking past the school and looking in. 

“For that’s where it was we saw each other for the first time,” 
said Hans. This remark had the same virginal freshness every 
time he uttered it. 

Before they knew it they were on the playground; their feet 
agreed so well together. They said but little as they walked; 
the thoughts of each distilled into the other. When at last they 


184 


Rustic Idyll 185 

said something, it was chiefly for the comfort of thinking aloud. 

They stopped close to the churchyard wall. 

“There’s the elder,” said Hans Olsen. 

This was enough to chain them in deep memories. 

Soon after, Ellen went right up to the wall; without a trace 
of hesitation, she went to a definite spot. 

“Just here it was that Holger Enke put you, that day when he 
picked you up and washed you,” she said. “And those curls 
on your forehead were there then.” 

They stood awhile at the place where Holger had put him down, 
and their thoughts travelled far away to the gloomy place where 
Holger was now. Both freed their minds of it at the same time. 

“Shall we go in and look at Hansine’s grave?” said Hans. 

The grave was well looked after, tidy and smart as a little toy 
garden. The sight of it gave them a happy satisfaction. 

“Yes—both her parents are there now beside her,” said Ellen. 

“It’s the best thing, too,” said Hans, “for she was the only 
one they had. I’m always so glad you look after the grave so 
that it isn’t neglected.” 

“I couldn’t help it,” said Ellen. “Isn’t it strange that I still 
think the best thing I’ve known, almost, was the times I’ve played 
with her when we were at school?” 

“Let’s walk on a bit,” said Hans. 

On leaving the churchyard, he sat down in the place where 
Holger Enke had deposited him on that sorrowful day. 

“I was thinking about Holger,” he said, “and I didn’t like to 
talk about it in there by Hansine’s grave—they say he’s behaved 
himself so well where he is that they think of letting him out. 
Supposing he comes home again some day?” 

“He can never show himself here any more,” said Ellen. 

“No, I shouldn’t think so,” said Hans; “not up there in the 
churchyard anyhow. Where can that Vissingrod miller’s man 
be now?” 

“He’s in America, surely,” Ellen thought. 

Hans got up; the ground was getting cold. 

“It’s beginning to get late,” said Ellen. 

The moon was up when they passed the school. 

“Everything looks different by moonlight,” said Ellen; “it’s not 
a bit like our old school.” 

“Ah, it’s being grown up and older makes it look different, 
too,” said Hans, falling into reflection. 


186 The Philosopher’s Stone 

“But when we think about Hansine, running about and playing 
in there—then it’s all just the same as it used to be. There’s 
something in the world, after all, which keeps on being the same.” 

They both became silent. Hans Olsen had shown the way 
to deep places in the soul, which they could not plumb with 
thought or word. Their feelings had to trickle vaguely from one 
to the other. 

But the deeper the silence in which they walked, the more in¬ 
timate became their tacit communing. 


XXXVI. Separation 


N EXT day Peter Murer arrived punctually at the Pro¬ 
fessor’s hen-house. 

“You must excuse me for not coming yesterday,” 

he said. 

“You’re all right, Peter,” said the Professor, “when you’ve got 
such a pretty apology as your wife to send.” 

Peter smiled, but the smile quickly changed to a look of 
trouble. 

Martine passed along the road and said good morning. The 
Professor followed her with his eyes. 

“It’s strange how quickly young wives get old and ugly,” he said. 
“It must be childbearing and hard work,” said Peter. 

“But Tine has had children too,” said the Professor. 

Peter looked before him like a man afraid to rejoice over 
what is his only joy. 

“Tine has grown melancholy,” he said. 

“What from?” asked the Professor. 

Peter stood aimlessly chipping a brick with his trowel. 

“We can’t find out, neither the doctor nor I. But”—he brought 
down the trowel more viciously—“I’m afraid the doctor thinks 
there’s a danger of downright insanity. I don’t know whether it 
would be a good thing to take her over to Copenhagen and try a 
nerve specialist—a professor.” 

The Professor shrugged his shoulders. 

“They’re expensive,” he said, “and they’re mighty little use 
anyhow.” 

“But they must know a bit more than most people,” Peter hoped. 
His tone was full of supplication, he wanted so badly to hear 
an admission. 

“I happen to know of a case over in Copenhagen,” said the 
Professor, “where a lot of money was thrown away on special¬ 
ists—and I’m hanged if it didn’t end in suicide after all.” 

Peter dropped his trowel. “What do you say!” 

187 


188 The Philosopher’s Stone 

“Yes, she took her own life in the end.” 

“Was—was that one a wo—a lady too?” 

“It’s generally women who are taken that way,” said the Pro¬ 
fessor, “and, oddly enough, the best of them.” 

He went into the house, lit his indispensable cigar, and strolled 
about the garden. Peter went on building the hen-house. But 
his thoughts were not on his work. At last he put down his 
trowel and went up to the Professor. 

“That—er—lady you were talking about, who died—how was 
it-?” 

The Professor sent out a puff of smoke. “She took poison.” 

“Poison!” 

“Yes,” said the other, professionally; “the means are various, 
but the result is the same. Some use poison, others the bread- 
knife.” 

“Its terrible,” said Peter. “What can that kind of thing 
come from?” 

“Sometimes one thing, sometimes another,” said the Professor. 
“In the case I was talking about, it came from her marriage.” 

“Was—was she unhappily married?” asked Peter. 

“No, she got the very man she wanted.” 

They walked towards the hen-house. Peter sat down on a pile 
of bricks. “Did it come on her suddenly—or-?” 

“Nobody knew how it came,” the Professor began. “Her 
father was a rich business man; she was his only child, and 
she went and fell in love with the chauffeur. A very decent 
fellow, for that matter. The father didn’t like it, but, as I say, 
the chauffeur was a very decent fellow, and the end of it was 
that they were married. All the smart young men in town raved 
about her, but there it was, she took the chauffeur. As you can 
imagine, he couldn’t do enough for her. For he could see that 
she was a much finer nature than he.” 

Peter nodded vigorously. 

“And so he accepted her as a gift he could never deserve.” 

“Of course,” said Peter; “but did she come to repent it?” 

“No. But—well, we can all be wise after the event. Now 
that she’s dead, we can explain the whole thing.—That’s what 
the specialist said when he told me the story.” 

“Yes, but what was the matter with her?” Peter rose to his 
feet. The Professor noticed that his hands were shaking with 
excitement. 



Separation 189 

“Well, you see—so long as the chauffeur’s happy surprise at 
her choosing him lasted, all went well. But—you know—you 
gradually get accustomed to the idea that the person you’re 
married to is your wife.” 

“It can’t be avoided,” thought Peter. 

“No, but that’s just what upset her.” 

Peter looked at the Professor in surprise. 

“It’s beyond me.” 

“Perhaps. But, at any rate, she began to get melancholy.” 

Peter pondered in uncertainty. 

“Well, but it can’t be that-” 

“Now listen what it led to. She came to have a loathing for 
her husband.” 

Peter breathed heavily and could find nowhere to rest his eyes. 

“But the man had no idea of it,” the Professor continued; “he 
paid no attention to this kind of whim, and one fine day insanity 
broke out. Do you know what she fancied? She thought she 
was a prostitute—you know-” 

“A who-” 

“Just so. At last she insisted that her husband should pay for 
her favours, as is the custom with ladies of that class.” 

“Oh, but that’s horrible,” said Peter. “Poor thing!” 

“Do you mean her or him?” 

“To be sure, I mean—both of them.” 

“Yes, but the strange thing is that, the more loathing she had 
for her husband, the stronger grew his desire for her.—I sup¬ 
pose you can’t understand that?” 

Peter bent his head and examined the point of his wooden shoe. 
“Oh—yes,” he said, in a low voice. 

“Well, so it was anyhow, and he agreed to pay her.” 

Peter shook his head, scandalized. “Why, how could he 
treat his own wife like that!” 

“We—ell,” said the Professor, “you see, she made out that 
that was how he had been treating her a long time.” 

“Yes—of course, she was mad,” Peter admitted. 

“She must have been,” said the Professor, “because she 
declared he was just the same with her as he used to be before 
with the women in the back streets.” 

Peter glared at the Professor’s eyes; his face did not move 
a muscle, but it turned grey. For a moment both stood motion¬ 
less. Then Peter Murer’s hand clenched, his arm bent, and he 



190 The Philosopher’s Stone 

struck his fist against a post so that the blood spurted from the 
knuckles, and his voice came with the blow: 

“She was damned well right!” 

“Why, do you know him?” asked the Professor. 

“No,” said Peter quietly. “But I’m afraid most of us are 
chauffeurs with our wives.” 

“Oh, well, the wives stand it all right,” said the Professor 
reassuringly. 

“Not all of them,” said Peter. 

“This one didn’t, at any rate,” said the Professor. “She 
left a letter asking her husband’s forgiveness for having carried 
on this shameful trade. She herself couldn’t stand it any longer 
and was therefore going to take her life. She died of veronal. 
First she tried the bread-knife, but they took it from her.” 

“The bread-knife!” Peter wiped the sweat from his face and 
looked at his watch. It was close on the time when Tine would 
be cutting bread for the little ones. 

“Couldn’t I run home for a minute?” he asked. “Tine’s so 
lonely.” 

“Yes,” said the P'rofessor, “you can go if you like, but first 
I have something to say to you which I promised Tine yesterday. 

“You’re very near losing her.” 

Peter collapsed entirely. 

“Losing her!” he whispered. “Is she thinking of the 
same-?” 

“No. Tine’s a sensible woman. But she wants to be divorced 
from you.” 

Peter sank down on to the bricks and held his hands before his 
face. 

“My God!” he groaned. “My God!—And the children, the 
poor children!” 

“Well, of course they will stay with her,” said the Professor. 

“Of course, of course.—But what shall I have left-? 

Do you know what, sir? I believe the bread-knife’s the handiest 
thing for me.” 

“She is quite willing to let you keep the children,” said the 
Professor. 

But Peter shook his head. “I would never take them from 
her—too.” 

“She is also quite willing to go on living with you, when 
once you are separated.” 



Separation 191 

Peter looked up. His face cleared a little, but immediately 
grew dark again. 

“It isn’t allowed, when you’re separated,” he said. 

“Oh, yes,” asserted the Professor; “you can get a dispensation 

in consideration of the wife’s state of mind,” he added with a 
learned air. 

“My God!” said Peter. “Then she really wants to be divorced 
from me.” 

“There’s this about a separation,” said the Professor, “that 
if it is broken at the desire of both parties, then the marriage 
holds good exactly as before.” 

“Then do you think-?” 

“I think you have to win and deserve Tine over again, my 
good Peter.” 

Peter looked hopeless. 

“She has seen me as I am” he said. 

“Was that when you were courting her—or now?” asked the 
Professor, and, as Peter made no answer, he added: 

“We must treat our nice feelings as carefully as we do our 
nice clothes, Peter.” 

“Yes—and we must have our nice clothes on when we’re in 
nice company,” Peter nodded. 

“So you’ve been talking to her,” he went on after a short 
pause. “Do you think she would some day-” 

“Nobody can tell that,” the Professor interrupted. “You must 
be legally separated, and she must have the right to a complete 
divorce when the term of separation is over—unless you want to 
leave things as they are and risk-” 

“No, no!” said Peter. “But can’t I have a little crumb of 
hope?—I know she’s done with me for the present. I ought to 
have seen it long ago. You mustn’t think I’m just a thoughtless 
booby, sir—but you get into a groove—and then there’s nobody 

to open your eyes like- You were talking about Martine— 

yes, now I can see it all. 

“Well, then, I’ll go home now and talk to her.” 

“I suppose I had better get the separation document drawn 
up,” said the Professor. 

“Ye—es—if she must have it,” sighed Peter. 

“Well, well,” said the Professor, “remember that the children 
won’t know anything about it, nor anyone else except myself.” 

“The lawyer and the parson,” said Peter. 




192 The Philosopher’s Stone 

“We can leave out the parson,” said Peter. 

“No, we can’t. He’ll have to try and reconcile us.” 

“Oh, yes, but Pastor Barnes will keep his mouth shut. And 
the lawyer too.” 

In the course of the afternoon he went over to the parsonage. 
A few days later Pastor Barnes made a perfunctory attempt at 
mediation. Afterwards he went to see the Professor. 

“I trust I have not acted wrongly,” he said. “I have an old- 
fashioned aversion to divorce, and when the term of separation 
has run its course, there is the risk that they may actually be 
divorced.” 

“Not immediately,” said the Professor. 

“You think not?” 

The Professor handed him the fair copy of the separation 
document. 

Pastor Barnes began to read it. He had not gone very far 
when he looked up at the Professor and took out his handkerchief 
with a certain amount of haste. He made diligent use of it as 
he read on. 

Suddenly he gave a start and stared at the Professor in dismay. 

“But, merciful Heaven!” he exclaimed; “suppose some day 
they put an end to the separation ‘in accordance with what may 
legally be deemed the deliberate and duly considered desire of 
both contracting parties,’ and go and get a child—what am I to 
do then?” 

“I guess you’ll have to christen it,” said the Professor. 

“I can't do that,” cried Pastor Barnes in despair. “I should 
have this terrible document before my eyes the whole time, and I 
should burst out laughing in the middle of the ceremony.” . . . 

Neither Tine nor Peter was disposed to laugh when the 
Professor solemnly read out the document to them, and all they 
succeeded in gathering from its threatening and involved phrases 
was that if they signed it they were legally separated. 

So they traced their names in careful copy-book style, and the 
Professor added his as witness and received the fee. 

The document ought to be deposited at the lawyer’s, he said. 

Probably he didn’t want to risk their sitting down to study 
it in a critical spirit one fine day. 


XXXVII. The Black One 


D AHL was convinced that the ecstatic expansion of the 
soul was a perfectly natural psychic process which fol¬ 
lowed laws like the rest of man’s mental life, and that 
the exercises which had once produced it must be capable of do¬ 
ing so again. 

But although he followed the cappellano’s precepts with 
greater zeal than before, no ecstasy came. His desire of com¬ 
prehension was still under the spell of the insight ecstasy gave 
him into the mysteries of existence, and his heart thirsted for a 
renewal of the blessed experience. At times he felt it near him, 
but at the last moment his mind closed, and he was plunged into 
vacancy and aridity. He did not know that the light he now and 
then thought he glimpsed, was a will-o’-the-wisp. It was the 
idea of the rapture once experienced that gleamed in his 
imagination and brought him a brief intoxication. This very 
idea, without his guessing it, became a wall between himself and 
the experience. 

On the other hand, his spiritual exercises developed a nervous 
sensibility in his bodily senses. He began to see flashes of light 
and to hear sounds, the physical origin of which he could not dis¬ 
cover. Invisible silver bells would suddenly begin ringing in 
the air. Voices spoke, as though he were overhearing a tele¬ 
phonic conversation. He felt himself surrounded by beings he 
could not see. 

In particular, he was tormented by an idea that a being sat at 
home in his room waiting for him. And this being was an 
enemy. 

At times this idea became so strong that he turned back from 
his own door and went up to Sophus Petersen. 

He had made friends with this excellent theosophical breeches- 
maker, who was trustfully “developing” himself according to 
the precepts of the mahatmas. 

There was no wavering about Sophus Petersen, and no ner¬ 
vous sensibility, but his handsome face, with its dark beard, was 

i93 


194 The Philosopher’s Stone 

obviously becoming ennobled and a spiritual light had been kindled 
in the naive brown eyes. Dahl’s excited nerves came to rest 
when he sat on the chastity sofa in Petersen’s tidy little room. 

This sofa was the dark spot in Petersen’s life. He had been 
told that without absolute chastity nobody could become an oc¬ 
cultist, but he saw very well that the sacrifice, which his “develop¬ 
ment” made fairly easy for him, was a hard one for his young 
wife, who considered herself discarded as a woman. This 
worried Petersen, but he had, “however,” no choice. 

Petersen’s friends, Kjellstrom and “the seraph,” watched this 
domestic tragedy with brotherly sympathy; they understood both 
sides and shared their tacit suffering. 

Kjellstrom was the more concerned, for he was married and 
knew what women were like. 

“If only they had had children,” he said one day when he was 
coming away from Petersen’s with Dahl and “the seraph,” “if 
only they had had children it would be all right. Now we shall 
see, it’ll end in disaster and divorce. 

“Would you like to look at my machine?” 

It had long ago outgrown the cigar-box, and stood in the middle 
of his room, made of new and substantial materials. 

“It’ll soon go,” he said; “there’s only a wheel wanting.” 

He had said that before, and the machine had grown till there 
was hardly a place for himself in the little room. There was 
always one wheel wanting. 

“I’m troubled about Petersen’s home,” said “the seraph” to 
Dahl after they had left; “but I’m still more troubled about 
friend Kjellstrom himself. That machine is eating him up. It 
is a perpetual machine, because there will perpetually be one more 
wheel to go on to it. And when friend Kjellstrom discovers 
this some day, his own machinery will go to pieces. 

“No,” he went on, after a pause, “the inmost nature of exist¬ 
ence cannot be transferred to a soulless machine.—If it can be 
expressed at all, it must be in a tone. 

“In the beginning was the Word, we are told. I believe that 
the Word was a tone. Tone has creative power. You know 
that with tones you can form geometrical figures—in fine sand, 
for instance—and the Hindus maintain that their mantras, sung 
in the right tone, have creative force. If a man found his own 
tone and could tune it in unison with the universe, he would per¬ 
haps be able to sing himself into Nirvana.” 


The Black One 195 

He stood still, as though listening to something in himself, and 
Dahl thought: 

'‘Barnes is right; we are all the same, we are seeking the im¬ 
possible, the philosopher’s stone: Kjellstrom, trying to fathom 
the mechanics of existence; ‘the seraph,’ listening for the Word 
which was in the beginning; Sophus Petersen, seeking to become 
one of the pure in heart who shall see God—and myself, trying 
to find the way back to the unblemished innocence of Paradise. 
Each of us is ready to think the others will end in mad¬ 
ness. God knows what will happen to us; for we are all hopelessly 
in the power of our innermost impulses. Truly there is need 
of a religion for the modern religiously-minded. A man who 
found the natural way to the illumination of ecstasy must be 
able to create, or at least prepare, the way for the religion with¬ 
out dogma.” . . . 

The worst of it was that Dahl could no longer sleep. He saw 
flashes of light and heard voices whenever he was just going off. 
It was not much better if he left the lamp burning. True, he 
could then drop off to sleep for a moment, but, immediately after, 
he started up in terror with the idea that somebody was bending 
over him to strangle him. 

This somebody was always the one who sat waiting for him 
when he was out. 

When he was awake he could keep him off by setting his will 
against him, so that in the day-time it was not so bad. But blas¬ 
phemous ideas began to force their way into his devotional ex¬ 
ercises. For he did not believe in the cappellano’s Holy Trinity; 
he had taken it as a symbolical expression for the nature of good¬ 
ness, but now the symbol suddenly suggested grotesque ideas 
which destroyed his feeling of devotion. 

He was at his best when out and about. But even then he was 
often a prey to ideas which he would not acknowledge as his 
own. Among them was a violent desire for Mrs. Emilie Petersen. 
He couldn’t understand it; for when he visited his friend the 
theosophist and had his eyes on his young wife, she aroused no 
sort of feeling but pity. But the temptation came again and 
again, especially in his hours of devotion, and one day he saw 
with consternation that it did not consist in a natural desire for 
the pretty woman, but in a devilish craving to see her sorrow 
find vent in a sin . 


196 The Philosopher’s Stone 

It was, of course, the everlasting sleepless nights that were 
wearing out his nerves. If only he could get a deep, sound 
sleep! ... 

He undressed and went to bed. He would think about the 
hazel hedge at home by the school. Now he could clearly see the 
playground and the church and the elder- 

He heard a quiet laugh right in his ear. He turned and stared 
round the room. A cold shiver shook his frame; for now he saw 
the one who had been waiting for him. 

Saw him and knew him. It was the black figure that 
“Crooked Susanna” had seen in her hysterical clairvoyance. The 
same paralysing, poisonous atmosphere proceeded from him as 
before. 

He saw him plainly, for the room was light, not with daylight, 
nor with lamplight, but another kind of light, which seemed per¬ 
fectly natural, though it did not light up the room itself, but only 
the air in it. 

The figure was black, surrounded by a poisonous substance 
resembling coal-fumes, which fitted the figure as closely as the 
skin fits a black cat. The face expressed strength of will, mock¬ 
ing malignity and craftiness; the features themselves were almost 
handsome, “ennobled,” if one can say so, by intelligent cruelty. 

The figure seemed to read his thoughts; it answered them as 
soon as they appeared. 

“Yes, it is I,” it said. The voice seemed not to be using the 
air as a medium; it sounded clearly, but without noise—without 
sound, so to speak—within Dahl’s ear. 

“It is I, sure enough. Last time I kept a little in the back¬ 
ground. You were then pretty close to an experience which had 
given you no mean strength. 

“You fooled us that time. She died, in fact, as ‘herself/ Well, 
it wasn’t much of a prize the ‘higher powers,’ as you call them, 
got in her. We had plucked her pretty well beforehand. 

“Don’t I too acknowledge these powers as ‘higher’? I can’t 
very well do that, seeing that we are opposing them with a fair 
amount of success. 

“Now, you see, you’re trying a regular modern trick: such be¬ 
ings as myself don’t exist at all! I could reply, of course, that 
you can both see and hear me, but sure enough you’ll shelter 
yourself behind the postulate that I’m a hallucination. However, 
I think I shall soon succeed in convincing you that we really 


The Black One 197 

do exist. Now, you believe—in a sort of way, at any rate—in 
the existence of the ‘higher powers.’ I cannot acknowledge their 
‘highness/ but for the sake of convenience I will use the designa¬ 
tion current among men. Many of you believe in guardian angels. 
I shall not undertake to confirm this belief; on the other hand, 
I can assure you that you have what you would call ‘guardian 
devils / who prompt you with many good suggestions. 

“Am I yours? No, I haven’t that honour. I rank somewhat 
higher, but am temporarily attached to you on account of a certain 
experience which has called our attention to you. I must tell 
you straight out: we can’t have the so-called ‘divine love’ manifest¬ 
ing itself among men. 

“Do I, then, acknowledge its existence? By all means—un¬ 
fortunately. Only I don’t consider it ‘divine.’ The very opposite, 
in fact.—Why?—Well, you see, if it were divine it would natur¬ 
ally be victorious, but it is not. 

“I must tell you—no, don’t strain yourself a.ny more; you can’t 
force me away. I have helpers behind me. There’s a whole host 
transmitting power to me—in case the enemy should try to come 
to your aid, as happened the other day, when you drove ‘the other 
one’ out of ‘Crooked Susanna/ You remember the strength that 
was put into you just when you wanted it most? Stop it now. 
It will end as it always does: we are the ones who win. 

“Look about you in the world. Don’t you find all men ‘fight¬ 
ing the good fight’ ? (I use your own terminology, though I object 
to it.) Then who sees to it that the results are ‘evil’? 

“We do! In small things as well as great. Take the case 
of two friends who would do anything for each other. One day 
one of them happens to say some little thing which hits the 
other just on a sore spot. It might be put right in a second and 
their friendship would go on for ever. But as it is, the injured 
party, ‘against his will/ answers in the same tone, and so it goes 
on. Both of them feel that they don’t really mean a word of 
what they’re saying, but an irresistible impulse forces the in¬ 
jurious words from their lips, although in their hearts they suffer 
for it. Finally they part as enemies. .Where does the irresist¬ 
ible impulse come from? It comes from us. 

“Or a husband and wife who were born for each other. Is the 
fire to be lighted or not ? It takes no more than that. And little 
causes are the best, I may tell you. They produce that slight 
irritation which is required for insulting outbursts. Is the dog’s 


198 The Philosopher’s Stone 

tail to be docked or not ? A trifling start like that leads to many a 
good enmity, many a nice divorce. Who inspires the poisonous 
words? We do. 

“Whence come all the little touchy snarls, all the petty hints 
of discontent which make everyday life a burden? They come 
from us. Little things, but effective. Who do you think is 
smart enough to work the switch that turns love of country into 
national hatred, class -consciousness into class -hatred? These 
feelings begin so nicely with love, but if they end in hatred you 
may be sure it is we who have won. 

“We have always done so and we shall go on doing so to the 
end, till the kingdom is ours. Then man’s real happiness will 
begin. Until then we shall do as we have done hitherto: destroy 
every culture you raise upon other principles than ours. We de¬ 
troy it from within, as the worm devours the wood. 

“Look at Christianity. Has it never struck you that the best 
of its priests are ours? I don’t say all, but the best. 

“You don’t believe me? Nor do the priests; but what does that 
matter, if they serve us ? Let us take an example, an anonymous 
one— nomina sunt odiosa —we’ll take a type: the eloquent priest 
with his eyes turned to heaven, his fine, expressive gestures, the 
man who makes it all so easy, for God is a loving father who does 
not ask more of us than we are able to accomplish, and the little 
that is asked is affectionately smoothed out by the velvet voice 
till there is hardly anything left. If he mentions God once in his 
sermon, he mentions himself nine times, and might just as well 
give himself the tenth too; for God is singularly like himself in 
the pulpit. He is pleased with his congregation, and his con¬ 
gregation is pleased with him; and this feeling easily leads to his 
being pleased with himself. As this takes place in church, it is 
regarded as devotion. 

“But you have yourself found out that self-satisfaction ex¬ 
cludes the possibility of real devotion. 

“When our priest leaves his dear congregation for a richer 
living, they show their gratitude by making a collection for him, 
understanding perfectly well that his master (that is, we) desires 
him a better living and that he accepts it. They would do the 
same themselves and are glad of the good example. This priest is 
one of our best. He is quietly and calmly killing Christ with 
veronal. 

“There is another type that serves us in a more direct fashion. 


The Black One 199 

They positively preach us. You may know them by their men¬ 
tioning the devil nine times for every time they mention God. 
They might just as well mention him the tenth time too; for when 
they say ‘God’ you can tell by their spiteful voice that they are 
talking about a malignant devil. They deliver Christ alive into 
our hands, since they give us ‘these my little ones/ in whose hearts 
they put fear. It is written, ‘perfect love casteth out fear/ But 
where fear is, love has lost and the devil has won the game. 

“You’re surprised at my quoting the Scriptures? The Bible 
is an excellent book. True, many of us are against it and try to 
inspire the ‘enlightened’ among men with the idea of making a 
new bible of human origin. It’s not a bad idea, but they over¬ 
look the fact that a bible of that sort would never inspire de¬ 
votion and therefore still less a fear of the supernatural. 

“Personally, I stick to the Bible. It is a true book. Only it 
has to be read with intelligence. It describes the conflict between 
the powers. Describes it veraciously and in our favour. For we 
have been winning ever since the Fall of Man. When the power 
that you call ‘God’ sent his ‘Son’ Christ to earth to ‘save’ men, 
we killed him, and men were not ‘saved.’ The powers of ‘Light’ 
themselves admit that it was only a little flock that was saved. 
But that event, the murder of Christ, is a sacrament repeated 
daily. I spoke about the priests who gently do him to death with 
veronal, and those who deliver him alive into our hands. But 
now look all over the world at the treatment accorded to ‘these 
his little ones’—and whatsoever you do to them, you do also to 
him. That was truly spoken. Can you doubt that Christ is 
put to death daily? Can you doubt that it is we who have the 
power, we who in reality are the ‘good’? 

“How does Christ reward his servants? With suffering and 
death. How do we reward ours? With honour and advance¬ 
ment. With unbounded self-satisfaction. And there is no petti¬ 
ness about us. Look at our priests. They are quite unconscious 
of being in our service, but, bless you, they get their reward all the 
same. Is not self-preservation stronger than self-sacrifice? And 
more sensible; the other is only foolishness. Is the ‘good’ man 
to sacrifice himself for the less good? It must be so, since the 
less good is not going to sacrifice himself for the more good. For 
if he did, he would himself be the more good, that is, the more 
foolish. That’s logic, isn’t it? ‘Hate’ is a stronger desire than 
love. Love can wait, hate thirsts for action. 


200 The Philosopher’s Stone 

“Tell me now whether you will join the winning or the losing 
side; that is what I have come for. I am speaking to you frankly. 
I daren’t do that to our priests; they have to fool themselves be¬ 
fore they can fool their congregations. 

“We think highly of you. You have been able to open your¬ 
self to the ‘divine love.’ So you can also attain to ours. Choose 
us and work with your eyes open, but in secret, for our plans. I 
promise you all you can desire of bodily and mental delight. 
Whatever calling you select, you shall arrive at its highest digni¬ 
ties.—Remain in the church and become our bishop. Your joy 
shall be unbounded. You know the nature of it, for you have 
already felt the mathematical pleasure in turning a ‘good’ equa¬ 
tion into a ‘bad’ one—precisely; I was thinking of your friend 
the ascetic and his wife. See how easily they might have lived 
together affectionately and well. See how easily the best feelings 
of both may be applied to evil. Begin with them. And, believe 
me, you will feel that the delights of ‘sin’ are greater than those 
of ‘innocence.’ ” 

He approached noiselessly. Dahl felt the poisonous atmosphere 
drawing near to his bed, mixing with his breath, penetrating his 
body, paralysing his will, benumbing his consciousness as with a 
narcotic; the will to resist was awake but not active. In a moment 
his consciousness would lose its hold, his resistance would cease, 
and then the direction of his will would have changed for ever, 
he would have become another and an evil one. With an effort 
which seemed stronger than himself—like that which may give 
a sinking man a little extra breath under water by renewing in 
an inexplicable way the air in his lungs—he tore himself free of 
the paralysing, poisoning influence and cried out from the depths 
of his inmost being: 

“No! Never will I belong to you, but will resist you even to 
destruction, if need be!” 

“Destruction it will be,” replied the evil one. “You have made 
your choice—for ever. I did not expect you would be able; I 
thought terror would effect what reason could not accomplish. 
But your vaunted ‘free will’ has actually this much about it, that 
we cannot force you consciously to will ‘evil.’ Otherwise—as you 
will find out—your ‘free will’ is not of much account. 

“Now you have had your chance—and thrown it away. The 
consequences will not be lacking. What is hell, to him who finds 
his delight in it, but a paradise? Only to him whose inmost de- 


The Black One 201 

light is elsewhere, is it a ‘hell.’ Your place is sure enough. For 
you needn’t think we stop half-way. 

“Through all the spheres a conflict is going on between two 
principles—the conflict you know of is only a summer-lightning 
reflection from the flashes of the spheres. There is no giving or 
asking of quarter in this conflict. Principle is opposed to prin¬ 
ciple. Intelligent self-gratification against the folly of self- 
sacrifice. Can’t you see that it is a conflict between health and 
sickness, between life and death? What is the Christ-idea but 
a sickness of the mind? What a perverted desire to choose suf¬ 
fering and death instead of life and happiness! Can you imagine 
that such things will vanquish life’s healthiness?—Look about 
you. Even now fathers rejoice to see the brutal instincts of 
their babies. ‘This little devil will get on in life’—and so he will. 
No, the fathers don’t believe in us, but what does that matter if 
they live according to our laws? We are not like the others, who 
insist on your acknowledging their name 

He bent over the bed and whispered: 

“Then serve us unconsciously, like these fathers and our priests, 
for verily I say unto you that ours is the kingdom, the power and 
the glory for ever and ever. Look. ,, 

He threw the light that surrounded him over the life of men. 
Dahl saw it penetrate like an electric search-light through the 
minds of men, disclosing the little perversions, the thousand aber¬ 
rations of thought which cause men in good faith to act in the 
service of evil. An infinite hopelessness came over him, for the 
confusion was so great, and all were acting in such good faith, 
that there seemed no possibility of their being saved from mutual 
destruction. 

An impulse to pray was born in his heart, to pray all his life 
long: “Deliver us from evil.” 

He began the old prayer: “Our Father, which art-” 

Horror-stricken, he clenched his teeth to check the terrible 
blasphemy which, against his will, his tongue was beginning to 
utter. 

The evil one laughed: 

“That comes of being a freethinker and religious at the same 
time, so that you use Catholic books for your spiritual exer¬ 
cises. The family life of the Trinity suggests many droll 
fancies.” 

Dahl’s head hurt him badly; he had a feeling that it was going 



202 The Philosopher’s Stone 

to burst. He pressed his hands against his forehead and felt 
that they were wet with sweat. 

It reassured him a little to feel this cold sweat. 

“I am ill,” he thought. “To-morrow I’ll go to a doctor and tell 
him I’ve long been suffering from sleeplessness and have now be¬ 
gun to have hallucinations. A doctor —a doctor -•” 

He went on repeating the word, as though trying to acquire 
a doctor’s sober view of the night’s experience. But he still 
saw the black figure. 

“Now you’re beginning to be normal,” it said, smiling. “You’re 
quite right; it is all your prayers and invocations that have 
excited your nerves. For prayer is magic, let me tell you. When 
you invoke, someone always comes—occasionally an ‘angel,’ some¬ 
times a devil. You have prayed much, and I have come. I 
will be frank and tell you that, if you stop praying, I shall dis¬ 
appear eo ipso. You believe I’m lying because I’m a devil. 
You qan try. Light the lamp; you have matches on the chair 
there. When the lamp is alight I shall be gone. I can't bear any 
light but my own. Just like the men whose spirit is the same as 
ours. 

“But if you pray, I shall come again. It is written, ‘Ask and 
ye shall receive.’ But it doesn’t say what you will get. 

“Let your thoughts ramble, my dear fellow; then they’ll be 
dulled and you’ll fall asleep. Take the paper and read a little. 
Try the fiction page; there’ll hardly be so many lies in it as in 
the other columns. It’s worth trying.” 

The lamp! Ah, if he lighted it, perhaps he would escape 
seeing. 

He reached out his hand for the matches, struck one, his eyes 
were dazzled by the flash, but he felt his way to the lamp and 
got it alight. 

He looked around. There was no one in the room. Naturally. 

To-morrow he would ask a doctor for a sleeping-draught. 
Now there was the rest of the night to be got rid of. There 
lay the paper, but then he’d read it. There was nothing left 
but the serial. It was nice and long—two whole pages. 

He jumped right into the story without an idea of who was who. 
It was splendidly nonsensical. Just at an exciting place it broke 
off, naturally. But he could amuse himself by guessing what 
would happen. No doubt the key to it was in what the detective 
said to the girl. Where was it now ? 


The Black One 203 

He began at the top. No, it was farther on. Here it was: 
"I have noticed, said the detective-” 

The paper slipped out of Dahl’s hand; the detective said 
some meaningless drivel, which drew Dahl into the illogical 
world of sleep. . . . 

When he awoke he had a bad headache and a feeling that his 
whole body was penetrated by poisonous fumes. 

And his hands were black—his shirt too—a thick woolly coat¬ 
ing surrounded him like the fur on a black cat. 

He looked about the room in alarm. It was daylight; but the 
lamp was still burning. He had fallen asleep without extinguish¬ 
ing it. Thick smoke was pouring out of the chimney. All this 
black stuff was lamp-smoke. He got up and put it out. 

The paper lay on the table, covered with soot. But how did 
it come to be on the table? He had been reading it in bed until 
he fell asleep. 

He shook the soot off it. What was that? Just above the 
serial was an advertisement which consisted of an empty square 
with a note of interrogation in the middle. In the empty space 
something had been written in ink; some of it was crossed out 
again. 

“Watch and pray” were the words, in his own childish hand 
from the time he went to the village-school. Yes, exactly as 
if it came out of his copy-book. But a line had been drawn 
through it, and underneath, in a bold hand he had never seen 
before, was: 

“Don’t pray, but sleep.” 

And, below that, some figures: 

13 — 23 *— 9 - 

Who had written that ? And how had the paper come on to the 
table? Had he been walking in his sleep? He knew his own 
childish writing in “Watch and pray”; but the other was not 
his hand. “Don’t pray, but sleep”! That was what he was 
thinking when he believed he saw the evil one. 

But the numbers! 13—23—9. 

9—he was living at No. 9. 

He felt the paralysing poison which surrounded the evil one. 
Of course it was the smoke of the lamp. But when he first felt 
it during the night, the lamp had not been lighted! 

He made a dash for the window and got it open. The fresh 



204 The Philosopher’s Stone 

air poured in. The healthiness of life itself. He stood at the 
window drinking it in. The cold did him good. 

People came and went in the street below, to the grocer’s 
at one corner, to the baker’s at the other. Two paviours stood 
discussing whether the frost was gone for good. A man was 
chatting with the policeman. 

He went to the wash-stand and hurried over his washing and 
dressing. He longed to be among those people again. 

The man was still talking to the policeman, but getting ready 
to say good-bye. The paviours were walking off, having 
settled that there would be no more frost this year, the sun was 
too strong. 

He went out. He had a craving to get really close to all 
these people. He would have liked to speak to the policeman, 
but couldn’t think of anything to ask him. Where could those 
two paviours have gone? 

Sure enough, there was one of them at the end of the little 
street. He hurried after him and followed him with his eyes on 
his broad, strong back. The paviour crossed Raadhusplads; 
Dahl followed: it didn’t matter where he went, and there was a 
nice rustic air about this big, strong fellow. 

Going along Gamle Kongevej, the man turned off to the right, 
and then Dahl thought he had gone far enough. But just there, 
at No. 23, lived Mrs. Sonne. He had to talk to somebody and 
went in. 

Katharina was alone at home. She had not seen him for 
several months and was quite shocked at his appearance. He 
looked many years older. And so tired, as he sat down in the 
arm-chair. 

She stood looking at him and could find nothing to say. She 
pressed one hand against her breast; something was working 
so violently within it. It swelled, it fought its way out, and with 
a wonderful exaltation she felt that a life, stronger than her 
own, took entire possession of her. In a triumph almost fierce, 
she knew that she loved him, and that he needed her. She 
felt herself growing big and strong, as if she were the mother of 
all the world, and she knew instinctively what it was she had to 
pluck him from and help him to attain. 

She was filled with a contradictory happiness. She was 
sincerely sorry that he was ill, but this very illness was what 


The Black One 205 

placed her on an equal footing with him and called for her 
intervention. That he had been brooding more than was good for 
him she knew from Barnes, and that he must be snatched out of 
all his morbid fancies and brought into the fresh light of day 
she knew from her own inmost, insuperable nature. 

She began talking to him about all sorts of things, any trifle 
that came into her head, and he listened to her lively, cheerful voice 
with a pleasure like that of the convalescent the first time he goes 
out into the sunshine. 

She told him about a new horse that Mr. Nedergaard had 
bought and that she had been trying in the riding-school. It 
carried its head rather high, but had a wonderfully easy action 
in galloping. She was looking forward tremendously to taking it 
out as soon as the weather got a little milder. 

“That won’t be long,” said Dahl; “the sun already is very 
strong. The frost will soon be gone for this year.” 

He looked at her in admiration. 

“Do you know what? You positively look like a paviour! 

“Well, well!” he exclaimed, as soon as he could get a word 
in after the fit of laughter that succeeded her air of amazement. 
“It was honestly meant for a compliment, for this very morning, 
standing at my window, I fell deeply in love with two paviours and 
a policeman—but most with the paviours.” 

“Here comes Mother,” said Katharina, turning to the door 
and just managing to quell a sudden blush before it opened. 

“I promised Mother coffee when she came home,” she said. 
“It’ll be ready in a minute, 'and you shall have a cup too—as a 
reward for the paviour.” 

Mrs. Sonne looked with concern at Dahl’s thin, pale face. 

“You’re not ill?” she asked. 

“No,” he said, “not ill, but——” He felt a sudden impulse to 
confide in her—partly, at any rate. He told her that he had re¬ 
sumed the exercises, hoping for a repetition of the ecstasy, but that 
this time they had had quite the opposite effect; he had grown 
nervous, his devotions had been disturbed—at times by positive 
temptations - 

As he said this and encountered her questioning eyes, a shy 
and dispirited look came into his own, as though he was 
suddenly afraid of saying more. 

Something within her made her bend forward and search his 



206 The Philosopher’s Stone 

face. She abandoned all discretion, almost forgot the man 
himself, in her eagerness to seize and understand an expression 
in his face, and her very scrutiny evoked it more clearly. 

He shrank a little, as though afraid both of himself and of 
her proximity, and then she released his eyes and he no longer 
existed for her. 

She pressed her hand against her breast in exactly the same 
way as Katharina had done, gave a sigh of profound relief, and 
turned to the window. A bright and happy smile came over 
her face as she closed her eyes tightly. Without a thought of 
Dahl, who was staring at her in surprise, she passed through a 
moment which reconciled her with life and destiny. 

A dark hour in her existence had been transformed to radiant 
light, a light from the sun of Italy. 

That expression in the cappellano’s face had always been with 
her, like a punishment. That look was the last he had given 
her. But it brought to an end the blissful time in the South. 
It was not her fault that she loved him; she loved him as she 
loved God, and God as she loved him; she had made no 
appreciable difference between them. But that day she knew 
that he saw it in her face, and she read her doom in his and 
wished herself dead. A dark and pitiless severity came over 
his face as he was speaking to her; he shrank from her. And 
he never came again. Then it was that she had asked to be 
allowed to enter a convent in order to become worthy of him, 
to lead a life like his. 

Though she had afterwards made a happy marriage and 
settled down into a life like other people’s, she had never got 
over that moment, when he rejected her as his confidential 
friend. 

Until now, when in a rapture of joy she saw her own fool¬ 
ishness. It was not her but himself he had condemned. He 
renounced her friendship, since otherwise he would have had 
to make her his mistress. He left her, because she was a 
temptation. The dark spot was in fact the very sun of her life, 
only she had been blind and had not seen it. 

Katharina came in with the coffee. Dahl was in a reverie and 
looked as if he wanted sleep. Really, Mother would never be 
properly grown up! 

There she sat with half-closed eyes, happy and cheerful, not 
taking the slightest notice of her visitor—just like a young girl 


The Black One 207 

who dreams away and forgets that there are other people in 
the room. 

“Here’s the coffee!” she cried. “Aren’t you going to wake up? 

“And now I have something to propose to you”—she turned 
to Dahl. “I made it up at the same time as the coffee. You 
must learn to ride! Nedergaard has three horses now. You will 
please go and take lessons; I’ll speak to the riding-master about 
it to-morrow, and in a month’s time we shall all three be riding 
out together. I’ll get Nedergaard to let you ride my old mare 
instead of selling her.” 

“But, Katharina!” said Mrs. Sonne. 

“This is out of your line,” said Katharina. “Mr. Dahl is to 
learn to ride; it will do him good. Is it a bargain?” 

“Well, it might be a good thing—I’ll think it over,” laughed 
Dahl. 

“Think! you’ll do nothing of the sort—you’ve had far too much 
of that. You’ll go to the bootmaker’s and get your boots. 
To-morrow I’ll talk to the riding-master.” 

“I’m afraid you’ll force me into it,” said Dahl. “But I wish 
you would.” 

“You bet I will,” she said. . . . 

She was so full of will-power that for the next few days she 
entirely took over the management of the house. “Mother does 
nothing but dream,” she said. 

“You are really grown up now,” said Mrs. Sonne. “Some¬ 
times you order me about in a way that almost makes me think 
you’re my mother.” 

“Well, I’m perfectly convinced that I’ve got a daughter,” 
answered Katharina. “Some fine day I suppose I’ll have to see 
that you don’t go and fall in love with a smart young man. 

“I was thinking we’d have ox-tail soup for dinner to-day.” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Sonne; “I’ll go and see about-” 

“You can leave that to me,” said Katharina. 

“Are you sure you can manage it?” 

“I can manage anything in the world!” 

Gay as a lark, she flew out into the kitchen. 



XXXVIII. The Numbers 

SHOULD think you could sleep, Mr. Daahl, when you 
I once get started,” said his old landlady. “This is the 
M third time I’ve been in with your coffee. And yesterday 
I could hardly get you to answer when I brought in your dinner. 
So you can see how badly you wanted it.” 

Yes, he had wanted sleep badly. But now he had spent two 
days and two nights in nothing but eating and sleeping. A 
healthy feeling weighed upon all his limbs and demanded exer¬ 
cise. 

He went out. The weather was clear and not cold. Those 
paviours were right, the sun was stronger and stronger. 

Crossing Kongens Nytorv, he met Sophus Petersen, on his way 
to a meeting of the Theosophical Lodge. As usual, he felt a 
warm delight as he looked into Petersen’s clear eyes. Their 
goodness was infectious, and their ingenuousness seemed to 
have a message for the simple innocence which he still thought 
was his own inmost nature. 

He would have liked to do Sophus Petersen a kindness. Why 
couldn’t he have a confidential talk with Mrs. Emilie and gently 
explain to her what her husband’s awkward tongue had never 
ventured to touch upon? If she could be brought to understand 
her husband’s motives, she would see that his feelings for her 
had suffered no depreciation. 

It was a delicate subject, and he pondered for a long time 
over how he could introduce it. The more he pondered, the 
more absorbed he became. He walked far beyond the door. 

As he turned back he decided to leave the introduction to the 
inspiration of the moment. If he began to talk about Sophus 
and the lodge meeting, she would be sure to say something which 
might be used as an opening.—Where was the door? Oh, here 
was No. 9 —ii and then 13; yes, there it was. 

13, where was it he had last seen that number? 

Why, it was—it was the first of the numbers written on the 

208 


The Numbers 209 

newspaper underneath the words, “Don’t pray, but sleep”! Well, 
he’d slept anyhow! 

Just as he raised his foot to go up the steps, still with his 
eyes on the house-number, it seemed to him that this number 
became a living being: it had a face! In an instant he knew 
that his good intention disguised an evil desire. A minute 
before, he would have taken his oath that he was calling out of 
friendship for Sophus Petersen. 

Standing in the street in broad daylight, he went through once 
more his experience on that terrible night, his own resolve to resist 
evil even to annihilation, and “the devil’s” assurance that he 
would be made to serve evil unconsciously and against his will. 

Was he really going mad? He dared not go to a doctor. Who 

could tell ?—he might be sent to an asylum ! And once there-! 

No, he must try to be calm. Of course it all came of the number 
on the door being the same as those cursed figures that had 
found their way on to the paper on that night of derangement. 

But now he lacked courage to go in. However, he had to 
talk to somebody. Barnes? No, they would get on to dangerous 
subjects and that would excite him. 

Katharina! She must have spoken to the riding-master by 
now. She was so brisk and healthy and straightforward, -she 
would be able to lay all his morbid fancies. 

He would go to 23 Gamle Kongevej, but by a roundabout way, 
to give himself time to calm down. . . . 

When Dahl came in, he found Mrs. Sonne alone. He sat 
down facing her. It would compose his overwrought nerves if 
he made a confidant of somebody. And he began to tell her—not 
too directly, but still fairly transparently—of temptations he could 
not acknowledge as his own, but which nevertheless had power 
over him. And he saw that she understood him. She said that 
happened to most of those who tried to lead the life he aspired to. 
He must not be frightened into the belief that it was something 
unusual, peculiar to himself. It happened to the very best—to 
them above all others. She knew it. Yes, she knew it. Her 
triumphant joy broke out into a smile. A loss, of which she 
took no cognizance at the moment, tinged her proud smile with 
melancholy. Mingling with the maternal tenderness which 
streamed from her to him was a ruthless desire to hear more of 
his temptations and to imagine them in another. 

But when she saw the expression of his eyes, spellbound by 


210 The Philosopher’s Stone 

the woman’s smile that glowed upon her lips, she knew all she 
wanted. 

There was no difference between his face and the other’s. A 
desire, the confession of which she had just heard, was directed 
upon her. 

When he raised his eyes to hers, and she saw their ascetic 
fire turn to a heavier glow, the resemblance was perfect. A 
dizzy happiness seized her; she felt it reach him; they rose 
simultaneously, clasped each other’s hands, their thoughts were 
already one. 

The door opened and a cheery ‘‘Good day” fell upon their ears 
like a song. 

They released each other’s hands, looked about them, as though 
they had been naked, and sought a hiding-place. Katharina did 
not approach. She stood as though lifeless. 

Dahl tried to find a pretext for leaving, but felt that if he said 
anything it would only make the situation more abject. He 
contented himself with taking out his watch and nodding good-bye 
to both of them at once without looking at either. 

After a pause so oppressive that Mrs. Sonne could scarcely 
breathe, Katharina said: 

“What was the matter with him?” 

Her voice had the threatening sound of a pistol being cocked. 

Her sense of shame paralysed Mrs. Sonne and made her fall 
a victim to the ready lie, which presented itself with cruel 
ingenuity. 

She gave a nervous laugh: 

“I believe he’s in love.” 

“Who with?” asked Katharina sharply. 

Captain Sonne could not have examined a mendacious recruit 
more sternly. 

“Who with?” repeated her mother, with the smile of a woman 
taking in her best friend. “Well—who do you think?” 

The Serpent, who owes Eve a good turn for one she did him 
long ago, assisted her. Katharina believed, and went to her 
room. There she let loose her smile. 

“My goodness, these old-fashioned mothers—they blush because 
young men fall in love with their daughters! 

“But what a man, to speak to the mother first and then 
away from the daughter! 

“That fixes it—he shall learn to ride!” 


run 


211 


The Numbers 

Dahl walked down the street feeling abandoned by everything 
good. He no longer regarded himself as an insane victim of 
hallucinations. He believed that in that bewildering night he 
had actually seen and talked with one of the representatives of 
the spirits of evil. For here, where he had come for rescue, here, 
where he knew his thoughts had always been pure, even here he 
had found himself against his will in the service of evil. A good 
‘‘equation” had in some incomprehensible way been transformed 
into a bad one. 

Though he was in deep despair, there was somewhere within him 
a wicked desire to laugh at this result of confidential confession 
and sincere willingness to help. It was really grotesque! A 
pity they were disturbed! 

He stopped. He found he was talking to himself, as though 
he were somebody else. There was another ego in him, which 
was trying to get the upper hand. It argued and explained, while 
“he himself” became more and more a prey to despair and fear, 
like a miserable little fellow going home from school side by 
side with a big bully who delights in tormenting him. 

“The other one” became pressing: why the devil don’t “the 
good powers” help you? What has happened to “God”? You 
want so much to be good, specially good in fact, God’s chosen 
instrument in time to come, a positive channel for the divine 
love—then why doesn’t it come to your aid? Won't it, or 
can't it? 

Overwhelmed, almost benumbed by despair, he walked on 
listening. Is it myself speaking, or another? he thought. 

Mrs.'Sonne lives at No. 23, Mrs. Emilie Petersen at No. 13; 
those are the numbers. 13—23—9. You live at No. 9 and are 
on your way home. 

He stopped and looked around. He found himself in the 
middle of the town. What would happen when he got home? 
“We don’t do things by halves.” He dared not go home. 
But he would have to some time. He turned down Amager- 
torv. There was no sense in all this. What could happen at 
home? 

He crossed by the fountain. In the opposite direction came 
a tall lady in a grey hat. It was the same one he had forced to 
stand still one day, almost on this very spot. 

In an instant he knew what was going to happen at home in 
No. 9. He did not wish it, but he could do nothing else. 


212 The Philosopher’s Stone 

A desperate rage seized him: if nothing good in heaven or 
earth would help him, he would give up struggling. 

This was really an amusing proposition: the husband who 
trains his wife to be a medium—for another man’s will. 

He stopped her and asked if she would not go with him to 
see Miss Bang. 

She hesitated and considered a moment, hadn’t really thought 
of doing so, but found, all the same, that she had begun to walk 
with him. 

Well, yes, then she could take Nanna home to tea; they would 
have to go at once, because Adolf and little Ingeborg were at 
home waiting for her. 

Just as she was thinking he was a very silent companion, she 
felt his arm round her waist, impelling her along. 

She looked at him, surprised and offended, and tried to free 
herself. 

It was unnecessary, for he was not touching her, but walking 
along with both hands in his greatcoat pockets, looking on the 
ground as though in thought. 

But she still felt an arm round her waist. 

She got uneasy and would have liked to turn back; but then in 
a moment they would be at Nanna’s. It was uncanny about 
that arm. Could it be because he wanted to put it there and was 
thinking intensively about it? She felt heavy and tired and, as 
a matter of fact, needed the support of the arm. There was the 
house, at the end of the street. If only they were there! 

They were there. She could remember nothing of walking 
along the street. 

She looked up in surprise and met his eyes, and then she knew 
that he intended her ill and had power over her. 

“I’ll go home after all,” she said. “Good-bye.” 

“Good-bye,” he said, taking off his hat, and went upstairs. 
He left the hall-door open, the door of his room too. 

She was surprised and relieved to find herself mistaken. She 
had really believed he wanted to hypnotize her. It must have 
been because Adolf filled her head with all these experiments. 

But now she was already halfway up the stairs! When she 
wanted to turn back, she felt that the arm was still there, drawing 
her up. 

Now she was really frightened and would hurry in to 
Nanna—ring twice, so Nanna herself would come and open. 


The Numbers 213 

But the door was open, so she could not ring. The door of 
his room was also open. 

Those two open doors were like a gulf into which she could 
not escape falling. 

With her eyes stiffly fixed upon him, but without really know¬ 
ing what she was doing, she went in. 

Desire of sin on the part of one, regret which the other had 
to smother because it was not to be borne, plunged them both 
into an intoxication approaching madness. 


XXXIX. The Professor Dines 


S PRING had come with a sudden rush. Leaves were burst¬ 
ing out on every branch, waves of green foliage swayed 
caressingly along the shore of the little gleaming sound. 
Every garden was white with blossom; the bees hummed, drunken 
with sunshine and sweetness. 

The Professor had walked into town. To-day he was 
hoodwinking himself—with the same sly smile as when he was 
quack-doctoring his neighbours out at Skrobely. 

There he had been born, but had soon run away, for everybody 
bored him to death. He matriculated and took his degree, but 
left Copenhagen, because the university curriculum and the 
professors and his fellow-students bored him worse than the 
country-folk. 

So he went out into the world in search of adventures, and 
found as many as he could manage. 

But one day he discovered that—according to his scale of 
measurement—he was within easy distance of the little island 
where he was born. Following, as ever, his inclination, he went 
there and walked out to his native village. “For Sale,” said 
a board on the house that had been his father’s. 

He went in and bought it, furnished it, and sat down to con¬ 
sider what he wanted it for. He had a feeling that he didn’t 
exactly want, but had to do something with it. And with that 
feeling he stayed there. 

One day, as he sat looking out of the window where he had 
sat as a boy, his eye was caught by a hedge behind a pond in 
a field on the other side of the road. 

He sat for a couple of hours gazing at this hedge, until he 
had a feeling that it could talk, but that he could not hear it. 

Next day he went into the field and sat under the hedge so 
as to be nearer. The field was ploughed, and he had an idea 
that it had been under the plough the very first time he had seen 
it or been in it. 

He felt a desire to finger the soft brown mould, and he did 

214 


The Professor Dines 215 

so. It gave him a strange sense both of old familiarity and of 
new foreboding. He had a feeling that now it was a case of not 
being “clever.” There was a restful joy in simply being “poor 
in spirit.” He remained in it till the joy had reached its full 
expansion. Then he got up and went home with it, carefully 
avoiding any inquiry into it. 

Next day he again sat under the hedge. 

Day after day he sat there and let the mould run through his 
fingers. The same feeling always returned, and each day it had 
grown. At last it reached far beyond him; he sat in the midst 
of it, not knowing whether originally it had belonged to him, 
to the field or to the hedge. All three now shared it. 

It interested him to see how far it would grow if it were left 
to itself and if his whole being were centred upon it alone. There 
seemed to him to be adventurous possibilities in it, and he had 
always followed the call of adventure; but this was different from 
all others. 

The hedge and the field kept him company in his pursuit; every 
day they showed him their faces more clearly. 

He decided to keep on and see it out. 

People saw him sitting there, passing the earth through his 
fingers, and had their own thoughts about it. For he was a 
learned man and must have found something strange in the com¬ 
position of the earth. 

The owner of the field began to have visions of a fortune 
after the Professor had found out what there was in his soil. 
It couldn’t very well be gold, but it might be something 
“chemical.” 

The Professor still had a feeling that the hedge and the field 
could talk; at last he believed he was himself on the point of 
being able to hear them. He took special care that his own 
thoughts did not intrude. Thoughts have their use. In many 
adventures it is they that settle the matter. In others it is 
muscular force and lung-power. In this one he had to go by 
feeling. 

He did so, and one day he heard. He heard the words “the 
Garden of Paradise.” 

And he saw it. It was the hedge and the field. There it was. 

But when he tried to look out over the garden, it was every¬ 
where. It was no fable: it had existed, and it existed still. It 
was the whole earth. 


216 The Philosopher’s Stone 

But the whole earth was not the Garden of Paradise. The 
earth concealed it—in its secret chamber, so to speak. But he 
could sit and look into it. 

Into men too. He could see what they had to do with the 
Garden of Paradise. Within it Per Madsen and Mads Persen 
were angels, but outside they wore very queer disguises and 
little guessed that they were in fact angels—nor did they exactly 
behave as such. 

But he could see what each particular one needed in order 
to come a little nearer to his angel and to the Garden of Para¬ 
dise. . . . 

Not all the Professor’s adventures had been entirely innocent, 
and each of them had left traces which did not point directly to 
the Garden of Paradise. It happened sometimes that “the gate 
blew to” and he saw the earth in its shabby garment, when Mads 
was Mads and Per was Per and nothing more. 

He accepted these dull days with patience; they were not usu¬ 
ally long. But they came, and a dull day is a severe punishment 
to a man whose inner life is as rich as that of Paradise. 

Now and then he would run short of patience and feel that he 
couldn’t possibly stand Per Madsen and Mads Persen any longer. 
Then it was that he rang up the best hotel in the little town 
and struck terror into its kitchen—a poor substitute for his former 
travels and their mad whims. 

To-day he was sitting in the room with the veranda, looking 
at the view—like Kipling’s “time-expired soldier man,” who 
leans over the rail of the transport and 

“tells them over by myself 
An’ sometimes wonders if they’re true, 

For they was odd—most awful odd.” 

On these occasions the hotel had to do its best to provide 
dishes which might remind him more or less of the most various 
places and incidents in a most chequered life—a menu of the 
strangest composition, wherein many of the dishes were only for 
show; but the wines he tasted, a sip of each, just enough to give 
light wings to his fancy and bring the motley picture-book of his 
life nearer. 

Then came the “psychological moment” when he began to laugh, 


The Professor Dines 217 

first at himself, for requiring all this foolery, then at the pro¬ 
prietor, who was bowing and fussing about, but would have put 
him down as a lunatic if he hadn’t thought he was rolling in 
money. Then he started giving his orders in foreign languages 
till the proprietor’s ears grew stiff; and finally he laughed again— 
at the folly of himself and everybody else, to the memory of 
which he had just been eating and drinking; laughed himself into 
the direct road to Paradise, paid his bill, and left. 

He walked along the shore to a place where the water lay 
deep and dark under a steep bluff. He could go no farther that 
way. So he turned inland and strolled into a little wood, the 
last trees of which stood on the edge of the bluff with exposed 
roots hanging over the water. When he was tired he found a 
grassy spot in the wood, lay on his back, and took a siesta. . . . 

Just as the Professor in the best dining-room had arrived at 
the “psychological moment,” Bjerg the lottery collector in the 
cafe had made up his account over a bottle of Madeira. He 
was in complete harmony with himself. Everything came right 
for him. Her death had come, in fact, not a moment too soon. 
Too much unloveliness had crept into their "relations latterly. 
A man ought to be careful about that when he had reached an 
age at which he has to admit that his best years are behind him. 
But they were too deeply committed with each other; it was no 
use breaking off. And then—well, it came right. She died— 
and her end was quite a nice one. There again she was fortunate. 

When Helen, after her divorce, came to visit her home, every¬ 
thing looked almost the same as when Helen was a child, and 
her mother had no other thought but of looking after her. 

And he had arranged everything admirably for Helen. After 
all, that was an item which weighed on the—er—good side. And 
even if he and her mother—well, what of it? we are but human 
and we didn’t make ourselves. And anyhow it was all over 
now. Ah, well, it was death and not he that had put an end 
to it—but he was pleased that it was all over. It had been his 
wish that it should be done with—latterly. For Helen’s sake. 
More particularly. 

It was so nice to sit and look at her in her mother’s home. 
She looked like an artless young girl. Absolutely. That had 
never been outside her home. Or exposed to anything. 

And she was pretty; she had many admirers who would cer- 


218 The Philosopher’s Stone 

tainly like to take up with her. But she had absolutely no eyes 
for them. 

This was remarkable, for so young and shapely a female body 
must be provided with senses. And she had been married too. 
Married to young Urup, of all people, and his love can’t have 
been of a particularly spiritual kind. “We must try to keep 
her away from the young fellows of the town,” he had said to 
her mother. And her mother was good at that, there was no 
denying it. 

Well, then came the heart-failure all of a sudden that afternoon. 

And now Helen had nobody but him. Bjerg almost had tears 
in his eyes when he thought of it. Only almost, for he had to 
tackle the practical side, really do something for Helen, who was 
completely knocked over by grief. He patted her on the shoulder 
and stroked her head and told her to leave everything to him. 
And in fact he buried her mother as charmingly and thoughtfully 
for her as if Helen had been a little girl whose doll was broken 
and was to be buried with all pomp and solemnity. He was so 
much taken up with his task that he quite forgot any personal 
cause for sorrow. 

And in a way hb had none. It was to have been ended anyhow. 

He was looking after Helen now. Pure and undefiled as she 
had remained, she should not fall a prey to any young scamp. 
What sense have young men for innocence in women? It is 
only when one becomes rather more—h’m—settled down and calm 
that one has a taste for that. 

Properly speaking, young women ought to prefer older men, 
who could appreciate them—by comparison with—h’m—to put 
it more correctly, who desired a worthy relationship, one might 
say an innocent relationship, to a certain extent. Life does not 
last for ever, and—afterwards—a fine evening to one’s days is 
not a bad thing. 

It would have to be founded on trust, and trust in him she 
did not lack. 

He would propose either marriage or—hang it all! she had 
been the wife of young Urup and must know something of life! 

He donned his top-coat and went to see Helen. 

It was an age before the door was opened. He stood per¬ 
sistently waiting. She must be there. He felt so much in al¬ 
liance with Providence, through all his good resolutions, that he 
simply could not imagine the slightest obstacle between him and 


The Professor Dines 219 

his goal. His feeling became almost religious. She must be 
there. 

At last he heard her step, with a delightful sensation of rap¬ 
ture. He straightened his back, and his eyes shone with the only 
thing that could make them shine. . . . 

Helen had been tidying the drawers of her mother’s bureau. 
She had died so suddenly that there had been no time for giving 
any instructions. Helen herself had to find out all about it. 

And to-day she had found out a good deal. 

In a secret compartment of the bureau lay several bundles of 
letters. She set to work to read them with the idea that they 
might be from her father, whom she had never seen but always 
thought of wistfully. 

They were not from her father. 

Though who could tell? For she was brutally forced to change 
the bearings of her existence. 

There were letters from a company director in Copenhagen, 
from Uncle Hans, from her father-in-law Urup, letters which in 
their shameless intimacy tore the veil from her mother’s life. 

Just as she had finished them Uncle Hans rang. 

He saw by her face that something terrible had happened and 
asked what it was. 

She pointed to the letters; he recognized his own and exclaimed 
with fervid sincerity: “Hell!” 

When he saw her staring before her like one who feels she is 
about to lose her reason, he boldly plunged in medias res and 
said he understood how shocking this was; life was full of all 
sorts of foulness, but she must not think filth was the only thing 
in the world; one could rise above it; he himself had been in the 
mire, as she could see, unfortunately, though she ought to have 
been spared it. Letters ought always to be burnt. But she must 
not give up and plunge headlong into anything of the same sort. 
He had just been thinking of her in this connection and of him¬ 
self —thinking that we human beings must strive together towards 
something— better and higher and—strengthen each other—and re¬ 
joice in each other—two and two—and no more—certainly no 
more—he had just been thinking- 

He expounded to her what he had been thinking, but felt the 
ground slipping from under his feet. 

Helen listened to him with a face of stone. Little by little it 


220 The Philosopher’s Stone 

began to twitch here and twitch there, and finally she broke into 
hysterical laughter, which made an end of Uncle Hans’s eloquence. 

He waited until he could stand no more of this insane laughter. 
But when he realized that she would go on laughing like that until 
she died of it, he ran home and locked his door. . . . 

When the Professor awoke from his siesta, he did not know 
where he was. He might have been anywhere on earth, where 
there was grass and green woods. He was immersed in himself, 
and his age might have been anything at all. 

Among the trees on the round knoll walked a woman, one of 
those in whose existence a youth of seventeen believes. 

Now—he was seventeen and would follow at a distance and 
look at her. 

He went a few steps, but then stopped. The woman was ill. 

The careless joy vanished from his face as autumn sunshine 
is chased from a field. With a gesture as though throwing off 
his coat, he freed himself of every thought that might intervene 
between him and what he had to do. His whole frame expressed 
attention, both outward and inward, as though he were simul¬ 
taneously observing the young woman and reading off an im¬ 
pression within himself. Meanwhile he stood motionless and 
no more occupied with himself than the beech beside him. 

Suddenly he made a movement and his expression changed. 
He was like a hunter who had found the trail. Concealed behind 
the tree-trunks, he rapidly stole to a thicket. Once there, he broke 
into a run. He ran in a curve towards the bluff. 

If anyone had known why he was running, he would have 
put him down as madder than when he was sitting among the 
bottles in the hotel dining-room. 

On reaching the brushwood at the top of the bluff, he halted, 
waiting for her to appear in the open. Then he slipped behind 
her without a sound and followed her, so firmly resolved that 
she must not notice him that she was in fact deprived of the 
power of doing so. 

She went straight on, looking neither to right nor left. When 
she reached the edge of the bluff, she jumped. 

Two arms seized her. That they were human arms did not 
occur to her. She had no thought but of death. 

But she felt that she was being carried. 

The Professor let her gently slip to the ground. He still had 


The Professor Dines 221 

one arm about her waist; with the other he bent her head upon 
his shoulder. 

He drew a deep breath and closed his eyes. For a minute he 
kept them closed; meanwhile his face was marked by tenderness 
and an intense effort of will. When he opened his eyes again, he 
was in the Garden of Paradise. Only two thoughts were allowed 
to live in him—that here was Paradise, and that in it he would 
lay the young woman to sleep. 

Helen’s head lay upon a shoulder she did not know and had 
no thought of knowing. From death she sank, as in a dream, into 
an unknown land, which was nevertheless made dear to her by 
her seeming to remember it. Her thoughts were asleep, but a 
deep peace filled her heart. 

Gradually she became conscious of this peace and wondered 
at it. She thought she was with her father, with him whom she 
had never seen but often thought of wistfully. 

His words and his voice seemed to confirm it: 

“Sit down, my child, and tell me what has happened.” 

She looked up and recognized the Professor without remem¬ 
bering quite who he was. 

Once, as a little girl, when she was afraid—or could it have 
been her father she was talking to then?—or had she only imag¬ 
ined her father like that? The voice too. 

It sounded intimate, almost within herself: 

“Tell me all about it.” 

She felt it was not her own will that spoke. It seemed to be 
this voice that gently drew the words out of her: 

“My mother is dead—I saw some letters-” 

She would have said more, or would have wept, but could do 
neither for wonder. 

For he spoke to her as though he knew it all, as though he 
had stood by her side while she was reading the letters. 

They sat under a white thorn in blossom; the white branches 
lay upon his shoulders and he looked as if he had just appeared 
out of the thorn to tell fairy-stories about all that might happen 
in the world. Nothing was quite real. His voice had a magic, 
imposing silence, like the voice of one telling stories on the edge 
of the bed, just before the hearer falls asleep. 

He told her that life was hard for those who grew up without 
having had the protection of a home like that of her childhood. 
He went on talking about her home and the purity with which she 



222 


The Philosopher’s Stone 

had been fenced about, described her home as she had believed it 
to be, spoke of it so naturally that these letters became distant 
and unreal as bad dreams from which she had awakened. 

But they continually recurred to her, and at last she said it: 

“But—but—the letters-” 

Well, from those very letters she could judge of her mother’s 
love for her and efforts to protect her, he said. Her mother 
perhaps was just one of those who had grown up unprotected. 
Evil has free play with those who know no better. And when 
once one has yielded to it inadvertently, it is difficult to free one¬ 
self from it entirely. It is like walking in mud, one’s very efforts 
to get free may make one stick faster. 

“Happy the ones who do not know this. Most people know 
it. Your mother knew it. Because she knew it, she was able to 
screen you. 

“Look about you. Wherever you go, you meet people with 
stains of the mud they have stepped in. Nobody is pure. 

“The world can only be rescued by a saviour. I do not know 
whether this thought was first born in men themselves, who— 
like your mother—were conscious of their sin, and God in answer 
to their prayers sent them his Son—or whether, as the Scriptures 
tell us, he himself understood and took compassion on the poor 
human beings and came down and helped them. 

“But since then a man has not been judged according to his 
own little value; he has been saved by his effort. This is the 
straw the Saviour needs to be able to raise the drowning man. 

“Your mother’s effort you have seen. It is yourself. It is 
your own stainless life. You are your mother’s straw. Take 
good care that you do not break it. For then she would have 
nothing but her letters. 

“Your childhood’s purity you must take with you through life. 
That is your mother’s contribution. 

“When you and she meet one day, it will be as each other’s 
salvation.” 

Helen looked up at the Professor. 

That day of the mission meeting came back to her clearly, when 
he had scorned and ill-treated the missionary. Uncle Hans had 
often laughed over it and said: 

“He’s an out-and-out freethinker, the rogue! What else would 
you expect?—he’s a man of learning.” 

“But—” she said, “but—aren’t you—an unbeliever?” 


The Professor Dines 223 

The Professor got up. When he spoke to her again, his tone 
was less intimate: 

“Does it make God any less if I do not believe in him? Is 
the Saviour of less account if I deny him? 

“I might stand here and tell you what I believe and do not be¬ 
lieve. But I won’t. It doesn’t concern you. 

“You are not to live your life supported by the faith of an¬ 
other. What I have said to you is what you have yourself been 
thinking, without knowing it. Now you must do it for yourself. 
Think and live. 

“You no longer have your mother. But you have her letters. 
Be glad that you have read them. And then burn them. She 
has protected you. Now it is your turn. 

“Go home and begin. And never go to the bluff again.” 

He took her by the hand and went with her through the wood. 
When they came to the meadow which lies between the wood and 
the town, he dropped her hand, raised his hat, and walked into 
the country. 


XL. In Love 


N OW you can quite well come out for a ride,” said 
Katharina. “Start wearing spurs next time in the 
riding-school, to get used to it. You've got on awfully 

quickly.” 

Her easy superiority would have annoyed Dahl if her pride at 
his having gone on “awfully quickly” had not been so charmingly 
frank. 

He was himself surprised that he got on so well. He had 
a sense of having been turned about. His whole attention was 
forced outward by the horse and the riding-master. 

He really felt almost a new man. 

Katharina too thought he had “woken up”; she was pleased 
with her work. 

“But do you know what?” she said. “To-day you have lots 
of time to see me all the way home. You’re not so busy as all 
that. Mother thinks it so strange that you never come to see 
us now.” 

Dahl looked at her and quickly took his eyes away again. 
There was that horrid gloomy expression back in his face! 
Why wouldn’t he come home? There was something he was 
afraid of. But after what she had made of him already, she was 
not the girl to give up. 

“What is it you’re reading for, really?” she asked, 

The question flustered him; it was the one of all others he 
was least prepared to answer. 

“Well—as a matter of fact—up to now I’ve been reading 
theology,” he said. 

“Heavens!—you’re not going to be a parson?” she exclaimed. 
He couldn’t help laughing at the shock it gave her. No, he 
wasn’t going to be that. 

No, as it happened, he was just considering the question of tak¬ 
ing up something else. 

It was a lie, but he didn’t know that until he had said it, and 
then it became true—to the extent that he was able to answer 
without hesitation her next question: 

224 


225 


In Love 

“What is it going to be?” 

“I think it’ll be the educational course.” 

“That means M.A.—Ph.D.—Professor, doesn’t it?” she asked. 

“Yes, that is what it may lead to.” 

She seemed to be turning the matter over in her mind and 
nodded reflectively: “Haha.” 

He could not avoid feeling the strong propelling force there was 
in her. If he made up his mind to get engaged and married to her, 
he could scarcely avoid being M.A.—Ph.D.—and Professor. 
There would always be a full head of steam. He glanced at her. 
She was looking straight ahead. It was infectious. M.A.— 
Ph.D.—Professor—the career of a useful man. It lay before 
him like a long, fine road, asking to be followed. Beside him 
walked Katharina, asking the same. In that case perhaps she 
would go with him and eat the bread he earned. 

Eat his bread! He stopped still, quite overwhelmed by a happy 
feeling of triumph. That she, a young, spirited, pretty girl, who 
could pick any man she chose, might be ready to put everything 
aside and be glad to eat the bread he earned! 

He turned towards her, and the amazement of this question 
was so plainly to be read in his eyes that she dropped hers. But 
not before they had had time to answer a rapid “yes.” He even 
had an idea that she had nodded, but was not sure of this. 

They walked silently side by side. Their moods were trans¬ 
posed. She had become uneasy, uncertain of herself, and the 
blood came and went in her cheeks. He walked along, calm and 
happy, thinking of the road before him: M.A.—Ph.D—Pro¬ 
fessor—and she willingly eating his bread. A bright and cheerful 
vision. 

She was waiting in confusion for him to say something, at any 
rate, and watched the approach of her front door with suspense 
and exasperation. A thoroughly actual, live young woman. 

He too was affected by the sight of the front door. She saw 
the gloom settle on his face, giving it the expression she hated. 

What was the matter with him ? Could he be afraid of Mother ? 
Was this another trick of that damnable book she had lent him? 
It ought to be burnt! . . . 

Dahl scarcely ventured to look at Mrs. Sonne as he shook hands 
with her. But that wouldn’t do: he pulled himself together, 
looked up—and didn’t know her. 

Katharina saw his surprise and broke in: 


226 The Philosopher’s Stone 

“Yes, isn’t it a shame of Mother to get herself up like that? 
Fixing her hair in that horrid way! She looks like an old 
woman.—You see, he hardly knew you/’ 

Yes, it was the hair more than anything else. It was arranged 
so as to show a good deal of grey. But that was not all. Some¬ 
thing had come over her face. It was so done with. Its pos¬ 
sibilities were exhausted, and the consciousness of this had taken 
the place of all expectation of fresh experience. He could see 
the closing days of her life in it already. As it was now, it would 
continue to be, with no other change but a slow blanching and 
withering, while the eyes gradually took on the clear, neutral 
light of old age. 

His sinful desire on that disordered afternoon seemed a pre¬ 
posterous fancy, even his memory of it was scarcely actual. It 
was dead, buried and forgotten; and the face before him seemed 
never to have guessed its existence. 

On the other hand, he was aware of Katharina’s living presence 
and felt its influence more and more strongly. Being accustomed 
to come in touch with the world through his feelings and let his 
thoughts come tumbling behind as they pleased, he placidly aban¬ 
doned himself to her influence, and afterwards acknowledged its 
healthiness. . . . 

He began to take his bearings in the world of men. He went 
to the University and found that the term was over and the ex¬ 
aminations had begun. Very well, he would sit and listen to the 
kind of questions that were put; that was a beginning anyhow. 
He watched the candidates, pale from much reading, and entered 
their atmosphere in the same quiet, contemplative way as when he 
sat in the lowest form of the village-school and made friends with 
all the backs and necks, whose owners never knew the whole 
lesson. Now, as then, he was a few years behind, but that hap¬ 
pened to everybody who changed from one course to another. 
He would make up for it by working harder next term. 

He discovered the poetry of the daily grind. One day it 
took on human shape and walked up the steps of the University 
in company with a nervous candidate for examination. She 
stayed in the vestibule, doubtless not daring to go into the audi¬ 
torium and witness the painful scene. Her eyes gazed helplessly 
at the closed door, her left hand was pressed against her heart, 
which hastened its beats as though to make short work of the 


In Love 227 

critical half-hour; her glance fell upon the engagement ring on 
her right hand, and then was raised again to the pitiless door. 
She drew a sigh and went to the window, leaning her forehead 
against the sill. She and Dahl were alone in the vestibule. He 
had forgotten to go in, from watching her anxiety. 

He came a little nearer, his steps sounded so loud in the empty, 
silent vestibule; she started and looked up, he smiled kindly at 
her, and she made a poor attempt to smile back in thanks. 

“It will be all right, you’ll see,” he said with conviction. 

“Do you think so?” she asked, relieved by the thought that he 
must know her lover and be able to judge of his chances. 

“Absolutely!” he answered. “If not, it would be a strange 
thing.” 

She looked so happy and grateful. 

He slipped away quietly so as not to be there when her sweet¬ 
heart came out. 

In a few years’ time it would be he who went inside, and per¬ 
haps Katharina who stood anxiously by the window. No, she 
wouldn’t be anxious, she would be positive that he had learnt 
all he had to learn and that nothing could go wrong—and she 
would be justified, for being engaged to her and getting ploughed 
made an unthinkable combination. When she was about, one 
did one’s daily work as a matter of course. He became con¬ 
vinced that she was necessary to him. This came about a few 
paces from her door, and he laughed at the thought: “Why, I’m 
already on the way to propose to her.” 

He looked at his watch. By this time the girl in the vestibule 
must have heard the result. Perhaps she was just saying: “One 
of your friends cheered me up so nicely and said it would be all 
right.” He really liked her so much that he fervently hoped it 
was “all right.” If she knew he was just going in to hear a “re¬ 
sult,” she would certainly wish him the same. It was extraordi¬ 
narily easy to be kind and fond of one’s fellow-creatures. 

“You look so cheerful,” said Katharina as soon as he came in, 
and her mother added: 

“Yes, you really look as if you had something good in your 
pocket.” 

“Yes,” he said, “I have a good proposal.” It had occurred 
to him that moment. He would propose to Katharina a walk in 
the Deer Park, where they could be alone. But somehow the 
feeling in him was not strong enough to make him say it at once. 


228 The Philosopher’s Stone 

He sat down on the sofa beside Katharina and talked, adopting 
quite naturally an intimate tone, as if everything had turned out 
as it should—just as with the girl at the University. Happiness 
radiated from Katharina, so that it could be felt in the air right 
over by the window, where Mrs. Sonne was sitting. She per¬ 
ceived that an order, a rather lengthy order to the cook would be 
more than welcome, and she went out “to see about coffee and 
things.” 

The young people chatted about nothing, so long as there were 
nothings to chat about. Neither of them knew which had moved 
closer to the other, nor which had been the first to stop talking. 
Certain it is that there was no room for anybody between them, 
and that the silence forced them to action. 

He knew he had only to put his arm about her waist, and 
as soon as he thought of it, it seemed that her back complied of 
itself. 

Strictly speaking, he was not thinking of her at all just then, 
only of what he was going to do, because he couldn’t help it. It 
is easy to feel awkward at such a moment, and in order to get 
over this and find vent he stretched both arms a little, certain that 
when they dropped, the right arm would slip behind her. And 
she had no doubt of it either. 

But it did not come. She looked at him in surprise, a little 
scared, as he jerked his arms to his sides, like a man who has just 
remembered something. What was the matter? 

He asked himself the same question. It came on him the 
moment he raised his arms. A chilly feeling that this had hap¬ 
pened once before. But when? 

He turned towards her, wondering, and as he met her eyes, 
full of anxiety and longing, he knew. 

Tine! It was that evening over again, when he stretched out 
his arms and found Tine in them without really being concerned 
about her in particular. It was desire disguised as fondness, 
nothing more. 

This was the same as then. He knew now that he did not 
love Katharina, but was only in love with her—with her or with 
Tine or with the girl at the University. They were all equally 
dear to him. 

But now he would have to go. She felt he wanted to get up, 
and she turned very pale. 

“You had a proposal.” She had formed the sentence in her 


In Love 229 

thoughts and must have uttered it, for he answered, as he 
stood up: 

“Yes—but I would rather put it off till another day—there’s 
something—something I have to attend to.” 

“Something I have to attend to!” Never had she given her 
horse such a vicious cut of the whip. 

“Then pray don’t wait,” she said. 

“Thanks,” said he, looking at his watch. “May I—I mean, 
will you say good-bye-?” 

Mrs. Sonne came in at that moment. She looked from one to 
the other. She saw her own experience repeated. The whole 
scene from Rome. 

When he had gone, the two women stood like statues, even 
their eyes said nothing. 

It was Mrs. Sonne who woke last and seemed the more grieved. 
Katharina spoke with a strangely calm authority: 

“Mother,” she said, “that Italian priest—was he in love with 
you ?” 

“I think so,” said Mrs. Sonne. 

“And you?” asked Katharina. 

Mrs. Sonne, ageing and grey, faced her daughter and answered 
frankly, but with the diffidence of a child : “Yes.” 

And with an attempt to assume the part of the elder, experienced 
woman who could give consolation, she added: 

“I have gone through the same, my dear.” 

Katharina allowed the words to glance off her; she went to 
the writing-table and pointed to the portrait of the cappellano. 

“Do you think it is right to put it there—by the side of 
Father’s?” 

With a guilty feeling towards her daughter, but none towards 
her husband, Mrs. Sonne answered: 

“I don’t know. The two feelings were so different. They had 
nothing to do with each other.” 

Katharina looked at her as though from a great distance; her 
eyes were cold, devoid of either friendship or enmity. 

“How many feelings can one have in a single life?” she asked. 

Mrs. Sonne did not answer. She felt humbled without recog¬ 
nizing any reason for it. 

Katharina took the cappellano’s portrait and put it into the 
bureau. “You can take it out when I’m not at home,” she said. 

There was something in her tone which made Mrs. Sonne 


230 The Philosopher’s Stone 

alarmed that her daughter might become a stranger. She went 
herself to the bureau and opened the drawer in which lay the 
red and the green manuscripts. She laid the portrait with them 
and locked the drawer. 

She sat down and looked before her with a face in which 
there was no future for herself, but much concern for her 
daughter’s. 


XLI. Under the Beech 

A YOUNG man whose object in life was not visible to 
the naked eye—no championship in games, no money¬ 
making career, but that “Kingdom of God” which is 
said to be within us—was walking in the Deer Park with a dull 
feeling of estrangement from the world. On leaving Katharina 
he was crushed with helpless sympathy. He would willingly 
have gone back and spoken the words she was waiting for, if it 
had been of any use. But her disappointment would have come 
sooner or later, for he had nothing to give her beyond a simple 
friendship and an amorousness which did not apply to her, but 
merely to the sex she belonged to. 

This absorption in the other sex always carried him too far, 
to the detriment of the individual women he met. Though he 
had no evil designs, his conduct was no better than that of the 
Vissingrod miller's man, whom Martine had held up as a warning 
long ago, the man who made a prey of erring and innocent alike. 

He walked and walked without seeing beech or oak or bush, 
but simply laden with his own abandonment, till his brain grew 
dull and weary and there seemed to be no life left in him except 
in his legs, which continued to walk until suddenly brought to 
a stop by a sound—“crack!” He had trodden on a stick. 
“Crack!”—the sound possessed him, a familiar, intimate call 
from another stick he had trodden on and broken long ago. It 
came through the vanished years with an earnestness and per¬ 
sistence as though it had sounded and would sound for all eter¬ 
nity. He saw it and the place where it had lain in the dust of the 
road at home, the first stick he had made to crack. The sound 
continued to echo in his mind like a voice calling him, and at last 

he thought he heard his name: “Jens—Jens—Jens-” Then 

he had a feeling that his ego was gone, had slipped out through 
the days of his life and lay hidden—near at hand or far away— 
as impossible to find as Lillebror’s spade. He might just as well 
give up looking for it. 

He gave up everything, himself above all, and sat down list- 

231 



232 The Philosopher’s Stone 

lessly. He did not know he had been standing under a tree, but 
his back found it of its own accord and leaned against the stem. 
Before him lay the broken stick in the middle of a little patch 
of fine grey dust. The sun shone upon it and caught his eye. 

The stick was stripped of its bark and browned by the sun. 
It had a bandy-legged bend in it—exactly like the last joint of 
his mother’s forefinger. It lay quietly pointing in the blankness of 
the dust. 

It fettered his thoughts to the sunny dust, as though all the 
world lay there. His eyes blinked wearily, but could not quit 
the brown stick and the grey, powdery dust it lay in. Even when 
they closed, it was lying there like a pointed finger. 

“What is it pointing to?” he said. His mother laughed. She 
stood at the kitchen-door with the same teasing smile as the other 
day, when he had been hunting for the tin soldier that was in 
his hand all the time. “You can look and see,” she said. 

He looked, and seemed to fly through the air. “Now he’ll 
soon go off,” said the doctor, putting his long fingers against his 
chest. They were like the roots of a tree or the fingers of a 

goblin. He didn’t like them. If he had known they would 

operate on him he wouldn’t have spoken to the doctor about his 
nerves, for they were already getting better. Now this doctor 
with the root-like claws had him in his power. “Yes, he’ll go 
off presently.” He made an effort to say: “No, not yet,” but 
could not get a word out. Luckily the old nurse shook her 
head and pointed with her bandy-legged finger to the little tray of 
grey powder: “He must have a little more yet.” A younger 
doctor, who was so tall that his head would have been out of 

sight if he had not had a big mirror on his forehead, took a 

handful of coarse powder and sprinkled it on his nose. That 
was rather better, but he was not quite off yet, he was afraid 
of waking when they began to operate. He could understand 
what they were saying, but did not catch the words, for they only 
sounded like air humming in his ear. Especially when the pretty 
young nurse in the blue dress spoke, that was like the air itself. 
She stood by his head and he could feel her breath. “Now’ I’m 
slipping away,” he thought, for now even the doctors were gone, 
he saw nothing but the root-like fingers and the round mirror, 
which had become the sun. “I believe he’s gone,” whispered the 
air. “Burn him now and let’s see if he moves,” said the roots. 
He waited anxiously, for he was conscious after all. “You can 


Under the Beech 233 

wake him now,” said the sun; “I’ve finished. All the madness is 
burnt out.” “Thank God !” he thought. “Then I must have gone 
off all the same, as I noticed nothing. How long was it, I wonder ? 
But I can feel I’m bleeding.”—“Wash him,” said the sun, “and 
then wake him.”—The air came with a sponge and washed him 
out internally. “His face is bleeding,” said the old nurse, Mother 
Earth.—“He can dry that himself when he wakes up,” said the 
roots, striking one of his legs hard. He awoke just as they 
went out of the door, taking the whole hospital with them. 

Above him was the broad dome of the beech’s foliage. He 
knew it and did not know it. This was the beech, other beeches 
only resembled it as a lifeless photograph resembles living nature. 
“Now I have it,” he thought; “this is the beech before the fall.— 
Then I must have died of the operation?”—But his face was 
bleeding and his leg pained him. He dried his face—saw that 
it was perspiration; he moved his leg, which had been lying 
across a root of the tree. 

Sleep still lay in his limbs, but his thoughts began to awake 
and move according to their laws. He resisted. He wanted to 
lie floating gently on the vague swell of semiconsciousness. What 
he was experiencing was something he had once seen. He had 
himself stood outside and watched it. It was something to do 
with an eye. It was Lillebror’s eye. Now he knew it: he was 
lying where Lillebror had lain that day when he saw him rise 
like a bubble from the bottomless depths of his eyes into the clear 
daylight. 

He was only awake to his profound sense of peace. He knew 
he existed; beyond that his consciousness scarcely went. The 
world might easily have been created a moment ago. There 
were trees and bushes and grass—and himself. He was alone. 
When he had lain a little longer, a quarter of an hour, an hour, 
a year, he might wish that somebody would come, to whom he 
could say that everything was good, very good. 

Somebody was actually coming—far too soon; he would have 
to wake up and move his legs. 

He drew them away from the path, supported himself on his 
elbow, and looked up. 

A young girl with golden-brown hair came walking along, 
wrapt in a web of day-dreams; he thought he could see them rip¬ 
pling about her figure, like the golden-brown curls on her forehead. 

When close to him, she stopped a moment. No, she did not 


234 The Philosopher’s Stone 

stand still, but she paused and looked down into his eyes, as 
though seeking something. 

But how long an instant can last! At the most, she had 
paused in her stride, and yet he thought she had been standing 
there a long while, looking and seeking, and had gone on with 
a suppressed cry of joy, like one who has found what she was 
looking for, whether a small thing or a great 

Only then did it occur to him to follow her with his eyes. 

Her white dress was already disappearing far away at the 
bend of the path. When it was gone, it seemed to him that it 
must have been really blue. In any case, he had a blue dress 
plainly before his eyes. It seemed inseparably connected with 
the simple, gentle, deep joy which rose within him. Not merely 
connected with it, but the cause of it. A little blue dress with 
good magic in it. Why exactly blue and little, when it had been 
white and grown up? 

He bowed his head with a quiet smile that nobody should 
see. It was blue, and he was sure there was a dimple on her 
cheek, a dimple full of sunshine like the patch of dust at his feet. 
A patch of sunshine on the earth, which brightened all space, 
a patch of sunshine on the floor, which gladdened all the room— 
Hansine’s blue dress, little Hansine’s bright summer blue. 

Had she been like Hansine, then ? He tried to recall the girl’s 
face, but Hansine’s childish features passed into it; he could only 
remember the eyes, and they were her own, like no other’s, but 
reminding him of what was nearest of all to him. They looked 
down into his and found what they were seeking: the home from 
which we came and to which we shall return, the imperishable 
'Now, in which the mind, the heart, the beech before the fall 
bear no marks of transient hours, days or years. 

She had seen everything in him—as he in Lillebror—seen it 
and taken it with her, and would never let go of it. The thing 
is so small, its impression is so great that it can never be wiped 
out. There was one besides himself who knew it. They were 
two. Even if they never met, they were two. It helped him 
to know that. Never would he come so near to anyone as in that 
instant when she saw his inmost being, the naked life within 
him, and knew that she saw it, and knew that he saw she saw it. 

He got up. Along that path she had gone. He would not go 
that way. A childish folly, which seemed full of wisdom, told 
him that that way had been gone. She had seen to that. He 


Under the Beech 235 

laughed at his foolish wisdom, but had no doubt of its profound 
truth. 

He turned towards home and walked the whole way. And 
no desire of meeting her arose in his mind. That imperishable in¬ 
stant continued to dwell in him, the instant in which his naked 
life lay bare and felt the sunshine of her soul. 


XLII. The Councillor 


H E had a feeling of having been born again. He could 
begin his life from the beginning. All he had ex¬ 
perienced since he had grown up only naif concerned 
him, like memories of another, unsuccessful existence. It had 
lost all importance except as a warning. His errors were wiped 
out, not in their effects on others—in this respect he began his 
new life in debt—but as regards himself. He had obtained for¬ 
giveness of sins and had arrived at purity and innocence of mind. 
Hereafter this would grow with him. If he could succeed in 
protecting and strengthening it, he would always be the man he 
acknowledged himself to be. 

He was accustomed to associate the idea of the growth of 
the soul with religion. But he was not a Christian, and he had 
learnt to fear emotional excitement. He kept away from the 
cappellano’s Catholic mysticism. 

But among his associates was one whose simple eye shone with 
increasing brightness. This was Sophus Petersen. There was 
no excitement about him, but a calm, sure advance. 

Dahl began to ask him questions, and Petersen explained that 
he was following the theosophical methods of thought-discipline. 
“The thing is, however, always to know what you are thinking 
about, and never to think about anything but what you intend.” 
Through theosophy one learned the ancient Indian methods of 
thought-training, and there was, moreover, a secret, esoteric 
school, “in which, however, you get direct instruction.” 

Petersen laid a stress upon “direct” which left no doubt of its 
meaning “direct from the mahatmas.” It was, however, his aim 
to obtain admission to this school when he had proved himself 
worthy, that is, entirely capable of keeping away harmful thoughts. 

The preliminary training, however, might well be learnt in 
the outer, exoteric theosophical community. 

Dahl thought he would like to know the nature of this train¬ 
ing, and asked how one became a member of the Theosophical 
Society. 

You did that by applying to the president of the Danish Lodge. 

236 


The Councillor 237 

Petersen mentioned a Councillor of State, whose name was known 
in connection with one or two important municipal undertakings. 

Dahl thought it over for a while. One day he made himself 
as smart as he could and presented himself at the Councillor’s 
front door. 

It was a long time before the bell was answered, but at last he 
heard the clattering steps of somebody who had not had time to 
put his shoes on properly. The door opened, and a little white- 
haired man thrust his head out with the grimace of one hard of 
hearing, before he came forward in the doorway. 

Dahl had not expected to find a footman of this description. 
His trousers were all knee and only came down to his ankles; 
his coat was worn, and green where it wasn’t stained. In the 
neck-band of his shirt sat a bone stud like a hermit in the wilder¬ 
ness. There were no cuffs to the shirt either. No wonder there 
was a sour expression about the man’s mouth, as though life had 
not been kind to him. 

Dahl asked if he could see the Councillor. The old man ex¬ 
amined him critically, turned his back, and trotted in front. 

“Come this way, please.” 

The slippers flapped along the corridor at a jog-trot; through an 
open door Dahl had a glimpse of wealth and luxury. The old 
man was already waiting at the end of the passage, and he showed 
Dahl into a room, or rather a den. 

“Come in,” he said, going in with him and sitting down. 

Dahl looked about him and made a note of the furniture : a table, 
two chairs, a deal cupboard, a nail with an old hat on it, a tobacco- 
pipe without a bowl. It did not give him a favourable idea of 
the theosophical fraternity to see this pauper and his den in close 
contact with all the Councillor’s magnificence. They might at 
least have given the old fellow a cast-off tie. 

“What was it you wanted?” 

The voice plucked Dahl out of his meditations; he stared at the 
man in astonishment and saw in a second that he was the Coun¬ 
cillor himself: now he was aware of the old man’s Diogenes face, 
his mighty crown, his broad forehead with its harmonious wrinkles 
and its serene but unfathomable peace, and his eyes, which were 
practical and on the spot and at the same time dreamy and ob¬ 
scure, and finally his mouth, marked by all that can befall and stir 
a man: firm and flexible, full of expressions of mildness and 
harshness, cordial joy and cynical derision. 


238 The Philosopher’s Stone 

Dahl came out with his wish to join the Theosophical Society. 

The Councillor asked doubtfully: 

“What do you expect to find in theosophy ?” 

Dahl was not prepared for the question, but answered instinc¬ 
tively, perhaps prompted by the impression the Councillor’s face 
had made on him: 

“Peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” 

The Councillor’s look of hesitation and scrutiny cleared into 
one of benevolence. He sat perfectly motionless, and about his 
head lay a solemn silence, almost a silence of death. 

“Peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,” he repeated slowly. “Then 
I bid you a hearty welcome. More than that is not to be attained 
in this world—or in any other. ’Elprjvrjv a(f>ir]p.i vpxv, elprjvrjv rr]V ep-rjv 
BlBiopu vpuv. ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.’ 
No, there is no more than that.” 

He paused for a moment and continued in a more matter-of 
fact tone: 

“You are coming to a religious community in order to find in 
it support and guidance. But do not forget that what you are 
looking for lies hidden in your own life—and not in a book or in 
the creed of a clique. For the grace of God is a living force 
passing all understanding, but churches and communities are the 
work of the devil.—Now I will enrol you in ours. May I have 
your name and address ? I will then send in your application and 
you will receive in due course your diploma of membership signed 
by the president of the Society at Adyar in India.” 

He took a note of the name and then began to chat about Uni¬ 
versity studies and practical affairs in an odd, cynical jargon very 
unlike the lofty, eternal calm that had marked his demeanour 
when he spoke of peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 

The door opened and a white-haired lady came in cautiously, 
rustling with silk. 

“I only wanted to know if you were at home,” she said. 

The Councillor sent her a sidelong glance. 

“Yes, I’m sitting here,” he said dryly. “But I’m going out in 
a minute.” 

Dahl felt he ought to take his leave. 

“Are you going downtown?” asked the Councillor. “That was 
my wife who looked in, but I thought you didn’t care to be in¬ 
troduced.” 


239 


The Councillor 

Yes, Dahl was going downtown. 

“Then we can go together,” said the Councillor. “I’ve only 
got to put on a pair of shoes—they're in this cupboard—and an¬ 
other coat.” He took out one which presumably he considered 
better than the greenish one. “Oh, yes, by the way, a collar,” he 
said on discovering that Dahl was staring at the lone stud in his 
neck-band. 

The collar was clean enough, but it had to go without a tie. 

On reaching the street the Councillor took Dahl’s arm. 

“Now beware of us when you come to meetings of the Lodge,” 
he said. “Don’t lose yourself in raptures over us. Live your 
own life. Follow your own impulses. Don’t go and be an or¬ 
thodox dogmatic theosophist. Read their books, but read them 
critically. For the things they write about may be the living water 
of life right enough, but the thoughts and the language are only 
their own stuff. And no doubt we’re brothers the whole lot of us, 
but that doesn’t oblige us to swallow each other’s bad breath— 
either physically or spiritually. I tell you this because we have just 
as many followers of the letter in our community as the Chris¬ 
tians have in their church; and because I don’t attend the meetings 
myself any more, so I shan’t have a chance of warning you.” 

“What is your reason for not attending the meetings any more, 
sir?” asked Dahl. 

“Because I won’t let them turn me into a prophet. I got up 
the Lodge, because I felt inclined to tell my workmen something 
of what I’ve got out of life. It may be a fine thing for their 
leaders to teach them to ask for higher wages and less work and 
to hate their employers who give in to them—and, in fact, to 
wipe their boots on their sense of duty generally. I’m not saying 
anything against that. All I say is that it isn’t enough to make 
people valuable and happy. 

“Well, but then we began to get more members. You know, 
people who were far too clever and enlightened to believe in God 
and Jesus and the Bible—of course the newspapers are much better. 
But now these same people sit there believing every word and 
syllable Madame Blavatsky has written, simply because it’s so ob¬ 
scure that they can’t understand a word of it. And now, God help 
me, they’ve begun to swallow my commentaries raw. I’ve had 
enough.” 

They had reached Raadhusplads and the Councillor was 
steering straight for the fashionable promenade. Dahl was not 


240 The Philosopher’s Stone 

quite happy about it. He was no snob, but all the same he 
didn’t particularly want his fellow-students to meet him arm-in-arm 
with the owner of that hat and coat and especially those trousers. 

They did not meet any of his acquaintance, but plenty of the 
Councillor’s. A whole host of tall hats were respectfully taken 
off as they passed. 

The Councillor gave Dahl a sidelong glance. 

“You’re looking at my clothes,” he said. “Well, I dare say 
I ought to get a new suit—if only for the sake of the people 
who have to bow to me.” 

“It’s not your clothes but yourself, sir, they bow to,” said Dahl. 

“Oh, do you think so? No, there isn’t an idea or a feeling 
in me that they care a curse about. But it’s very nice of ’em to 
take off their hats to my cheque-book. Well, here’s the bank. 
I’ve got to go in and cash a cheque.” 

“May I ask you one thing, sir?” said Dahl. “Isn’t there an 
esoteric school in the Theosophical Society?” 

The Councillor was already at the top of the steps; he came 
down again with a rush. 

“You don’t want to go in for that? What do you want 
with it?” 

Dahl said something about spiritual development. 

“Spiritual development!” repeated the other. “Why, damn 
it, life’s right in front of your nose and it’ll give you all 
the spiritual development you want. Lead a practical and useful 
life, and lead it in such a way that everything you turn your hand 
to becomes a spiritual action. That’s a lot better than sitting and 
looking at your navel and practising artificial breathing. 

“I dare say there are some who are fitted for being yogis. 
Whether you’re one of them I don’t know, and I’m pretty sure 
you don’t know either. But I know a good many esoterics that in 
my humble coterie opinion are simply not fitted. They ‘study,’ 
and they train themselves, till they go daft. They speculate 
and ‘meditate,’ till at last they can’t see life itself for imaginary 
causes of life. They gradually get their nervous system into 
such a state that I’m damned if they can breathe in a collection of 
ordinary mortals. They can’t go past a butcher’s shop without 
going through a lot of mysterious tomfoolery to get rid of the 
lower ‘elemental spirits’ that are supposed to gorge themselves 
on the bloody atmosphere. 

“I shouldn’t like to see you turn into one of those. You are 


The Councillor 241 

young and have talent. There’s a fine life before you. Live 
it as well and as purely as you can. And let God in his mercy give 
you what he has in store. But don’t go putting in claims of 
your own as to when, where and how much- 

“Ha!” The last exclamation was due to a gentleman in a 
frock-coat who was bearing down on them. The Councillor cast 
a look at the door of the bank, but it was too late to escape. 
He introduced Mr. Skaarup, secretary in a Government office, 
and Dahl to each other. 

Skaarup asked if the Councillor really intended to give up 
conducting the work of the Theosophical Lodge. 

“Yes,” said the Councillor. 

Skaarup expressed his deep regret, but concluded by asking: 

“Have you any objection to my carrying on the meetings in 
future ?” 

The old man looked at him critically. 

“Heaps,” he answered; “but I’m afraid I can’t stop you. 
Good-bye.” 

He disappeared through the door of the bank and Dahl was 
left with Skaarup, who asked if he was a member and then 
attached himself to him, zealously propounding the mysteries of 
theosophy in a kaleidoscopic hotchpotch which made Dahl under¬ 
stand why the Councillor had given up. 

At parting, Skaarup gave Dahl his address and gushingly 
invited him to come and study theosophy with him. 

Dahl thanked him, but was firmly resolved not to go. 



XLIII. A Released Convict 


A THUNDER-STORM had passed over the neighbor¬ 
hood; the sky was rent and the waters poured down. 
The earth had drunk all it could and left the rest to stand 
in pools, as deep as ponds. Trees and bushes were still under the 
stress of the storm, but began to show signs of recovery. The 
calm of liberation pervaded all things. 

The Professor sat at his window watching a callous crow, 
which with disturbing cries flew into the willow by the hedge. 
There it settled down, and for the next quarter of an hour 
nothing happened. 

Then there was a clicking of the garden-gate, and Holger 
Enke came slowly up the path, his clogged boots sinking deep at 
every step. 

His sentence had been remitted. His conduct in prison had 
been exceptionally good and he had been emphatically recom¬ 
mended for pardon. To everybody’s surprise, he had returned 
home to the parish where his crime had been committed. He 
had been there a week or so and had been round to most of the 
farmers to ask for work. Now he was scraping the mud off 
his boots on the Professor’s steps and taking his time over it. 
At last he knocked and opened the door, but came no farther 
than the passage. 

“May I come in?” 

The Professor nodded. 

Holger began pulling off his clog-soled boots. He did not 
notice that the Professor’s eyes were searching his person all 
the while, feeling it over, as it were, both inside and out. When 
Holger looked up he only met a blank expression and heard a 
drawling “Sit down.” 

The language was that of the town, but the tone was dilatory 
and rustic. 

Holger made no move. 

“Well—I suppose you know who I am.” 

The Professor did not answer, but looked at Holger as one 
looks at a casual labourer, who presumably hasn’t come to worry 

242 


A Released Convict 243 

one for nothing and who ought to say what he has to say and 
be done with it. 

Holger’s business slipped out of his mouth before he could 
remember the introductory speech he had composed on the way. 

“Will you lend me the price of my journey to Jutland?” 

“What do you want in Jutland?” 

Holger looked at his feet. 

“I can’t get any work here.—I suppose it’s because I’ve been 
in jail.” 

“Sit down,” said the Professor. 

Holger shot a doubtful glance at him and remained standing. 

“Sit down, damn it,” said the Professor in a tone of irritated 
reprimand. 

Holger sat down, because he was told to. 

“Will you lend me the money?” 

“No.” 

The refusal sounded indifferent, but certainly irrevocable; 
Holger’s head made a little gesture of admission: 

“Well—no!” His eyes were fixed on a knot in the floor-boards. 
“But you were the only one—and I should have paid it back all 
right.” 

Something nudged his arm. It was a cigar-box which the 
Professor was holding out to him. Holger looked from the 
box to the Professor and from the Professor to the box without 
forming any reasonable idea of, his intention. 

“Take a cigar, confound you, when I offer you one,” said 
the Professor. 

Holger obeyed. He sat with the cigar between his fingers, 
staring at it. 

“Bite off the end and spit it out,” said the Professor. 

Holger bit, and the end shot out into the middle of the room, 
where it lay, looking huge. Of course he ought to have sent it 
into a spittoon. He was just^ looking about for one, when a 
light blazed before his eyes. The Professor had struck a match 
and was holding it to the end of Holger’s cigar. 

“Pull,” said he. 

Something gave a jerk inside Holger, he looked quickly up 
at the Professor’s face, the jerk came again, this time so violently 
that it startled him, shook his big shoulders, went to his head, 
and burst out of his mouth in a spluttering laugh which spurted 
over the Professor’s hand and put out the match. 


244 The Philosopher’s Stone 

He gave a contrite glance at the Professor, met his eyes, 
struggled, but could not free himself from that droll look which 
positively worked on him, went right into him and tickled him, 
till he was dissolved in immoderate laughter like a schoolboy. 

The Professor seated himself on the opposite side of the table. 
Holger stopped laughing and looked before him in a silence 
which grew more and more oppressive. At last he said in a 
dull, expressionless tone: 

“So that was—laughing. Pd forgotten—I didn’t know I 

could- You oughtn’t to have done that, Professor. It hurts 

when it’s over.” 

“I have work for you,” said the Professor. 

“You?” 

“Yes. I want to have a quickset hedge between the garden 
and the field instead of the stone wall. You can pull down 
the stones, break them up, and cart them away.” 

Holger got up. 

“Well—you know I’ve been in jail, so-” 

“That’s just the good thing about it,” said the Professor. 

Holger gave a start. There was something, perhaps not 
downright brutal, but at any rate carelessly rakish in the other’s 
tone. And the man seemed to mean it too, whether you could 

call it brutal or not, exactly as if—as if- He stared at the 

Professor, who was looking at him with an indefinable smile that 
you couldn’t put much trust in. He felt ashamed of what he was 
thinking, but couldn’t help it. It was, above all, the mocking, 
closed smile that did it. 

“Out with it,” said the Professor. 

Holger turned red with confusion. “What?” 

“What you were thinking.” 

“Why, do you know it?” His mouth stood open with 
bewilderment. 

“No, but it might amuse me to hear it.” 

Holger hesitated a moment, then drew himself up and said 
frankly: 

“I’m not going to take your pay if I’ve had such thoughts— 
only for a moment—without your knowing it. 

“You looked like one of those I came across—over there. A 
plaguy clever fellow, but—as he said himself—not clever enough 
to be too clever for them. There was something in what you said 
and in the way—yes, in the way you’re standing now—which 




A Released Convict 245 

made me—well, I may just as well tell you honestly, the thought 
flashed through my head that you looked like a man who had kept 
clear of jail because you were too clever for them. So now you 
know it.” 

The Professor took his eyes off Holger and turned his back. 
When his face came round again, the eyes blinked unsteadily, but 
there was a defiant ring in his voice. 

“If that was the case—if I had got off because I was cleverer 
than the rest of you, who were fools enough to get pinched—then 
perhaps you wouldn’t work for me?” 

"Is it true?” said Holger, almost in a whisper. 

The Professor looked him up and down superciliously. 

"If I haven’t told anybody else, you could scarcely expect me 
to tell you. After your nice behaviour over there, you’d soon 
send word to one of your friends the slave-drivers on the other 
side of the water.—But perhaps you don’t want to work here?” 

Holger regarded him doubtfully. 

"I can’t make you out,” he said. "There’s nobody knows any¬ 
thing about you, and you beat me. But whoever you are, and 
whatever you may have done or not done in foreign parts, I’m 
not the one to judge anybody.” 

"Then you’ll come to-morrow,” said the Professor. "You can 
have your meals here, so you can stay the whole day.” 

"All right,” said Holger, and went. 

Next morning he was at the stone wall and kept at work till 
evening. 

They had dinner together, sitting one on each side of the table. 
Not a word was exchanged. Now and then Holger stole a search¬ 
ing look across the dish, but never met the Professor’s eyes, which 
had been fitful and uneasy ever since their last conversation. It 
was a good thing, all the same, that he didn’t talk. 

One day Holger noticed a change and found the Professor’s 
eyes on him the whole time. 

"What does he want with me ?” he thought. "I can see by his 
looks that he thinks I’m a stupid fool—just as the other one did 
—over there.” Funnily enough, he felt quite comfortable about 
it. He breathed a deep sigh. 

"What are you thinking about?” asked the Professor. 

"About jail,” said Holger, lost in memories. "It was a good 
place to be.” 

The Professor leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hands, 


246 The Philosopher’s Stone 

like a horse-dealer who had done a good stroke of business and 
is not worried with moral scruples. 

“It seems to me, though, 1 ” he said, “that one can be just as 
comfortable outside.” 

“Yes, here,” said Holger. He turned red and added: “Ex¬ 
cuse me. I didn’t mean any harm by that.” 

“Oh, you didn’t?” said the Professor. “But suppose now you 
found me out—would you peach on me?” 

“No,” replied Holger. “I don’t believe you’ve done anything 
either. But I can’t make up my mind about you. And they say 
you’ve been all over the world. And I suppose there are lots of 
places where they’re not so particular what you do.” 

“Just so,” said the Professor. “I wasn’t always so old as I 
am now, but I’ve never, in any part of the world, done anything 
that came under the law —of that country.” 

They looked at each other; their eyes met for a second in confi¬ 
dential comradeship. Then Holger got up and went to the stone 
wall. The Professor saw that he handled his pick and crow-bar 
with more cheerfulness than usual. 

But next morning his face was closed. The heavy lids hung 
down over his eyes and the Professor thought there could be no 
light either within him or without. 

The work did not go at the usual pace. Holger stood wool¬ 
gathering for long spells at a time, and now and then put his 
hand to his head as though it hurt him. Then he would suddenly 
seize his pickax and go for the stones as if he had to shift the 
whole wall in an instant. 

The Professor sat still and watched him, like a fisherman keep¬ 
ing his eye on the float. 

Suddenly he jumped up with a start. The pick had fallen out 
of Holger’s hands. He stood holding his head and swaying to 
and fro. He did not fall, but staggered towards an old apple- 
tree, groping with his arms, got hold of a branch, and laid his 
head against it. 

The Professor ran out, took him in his arms, and turned him 
round. “Come here,” he said. 

Holger’s eyes looked like those of a dying man; he collapsed 
in the arms of the Professor, who dragged him in, feeling as if he 
had a corpse to deal with. 

He got him into a chair, with his arms on the table; his head 
lay heavily on his arms. 


A Released Convict 247 

“Holger!” he said, and felt how his voice lost itself in the room 
without reaching Holger. He thought for a moment and then 
struck the table hard. 

“Hullo!” He shouted so loud that it made an old vase ring 
on the shelf. 

Holger lifted his head and saw the Professor’s outstretched 
hand fly into the air. He knew he was going to get a licking— 
not a blow like a man, but a box on the ears fit for a schoolboy. 
His left elbow went up from old habit, he ducked his head, and, 
as he did so, heard the Professor’s voice, commanding obedience: 

“Cry, you rascal! Will you cry when I tell you!” 

At the word “cry” an obedient gulp came deep down in Holger 
and the tears began to gush out of him, as the water gushes out 
of a pump, which does not think of what it is doing, but simply 
provides water because somebody is pumping. 

All at once his tears were checked, as though in surprise at 
himself. Then they began again more violently than before, and 
now it was Holger himself that was crying, like a man in despair 
who knows what he is crying for. 

He continued to weep, until he heard a sound, a noise un¬ 
familiar to his ear. He looked about him and grasped that it 
was not a noise he had heard, but the profound stillness of the 
room. 

In this dense stillness, and not to be distinguished from it, sat 
the Professor; and to him, or to the stillness and to himself, 
Holger began to speak. 

“I have known this once before. I felt it when I had done it 
and went in to make an end of myself. 

“But then they began asking me why I had done it. And 
then my wits stood still. 

“I can’t ever have done that to her on purpose. But they kept 
on with their questions. 

“They wanted to make me explain; and they asked me questions 
till my wits stood still. 

“They said I was a murderer. ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘I was dead set 
on it that I’d give him a fearful death.’ 

“ ‘But you didn’t do that,’ they said. ‘No,’ said I, and my wits 
stood still. For what I was going to do was to break every bone 
in his body and take time over it. And there he was with them 
all safe and sound. 

“Then they went on asking me about what I had done. 


248 The Philosopher’s Stone 

“How could I explain, when it was all impossible? 

“So they sent me to jail for life. 

“Jail. The most gruesome place on earth; how I had shuddered 
at the very name of it when I was a boy! Now I was to go 
there myself. My wits stood still at the thought. And yet it 
seemed like a matter of course. It was something heavy I’d got 
to carry, and the heavier the things they heaped on my shoulders, 
the better it was.” 

He paused for a while, sitting motionless and looking before 
him. 

“Aye, it must be that,” he said at last; “it must be like that.” 

“How?” asked the Professor cautiously. 

“My mother had a clock at home,” said Holger, without looking 
at him or changing his position; “an old Bornholm clock that 
stood against the wall. When I was a little boy I half thought it 
was alive; it looked something like my grandmother. It seemed 
to be talking to itself when it ticked, and when it struck, it sang 
like Grandmother, who used to go about humming a hymn-tune. 

“Then one day it stopped. At five-and-twenty past ten. It 
stopped there for years.” 

He was silent for a moment, lost in reflections which went far 
beyond the clock. He nodded to himself, almost imperceptibly, 
as he said: 

“It was the same clock all right, but the works didn’t go, so it 
stuck there stupidly pointing to the same figures. 

“But one day a clock-maker came and opened it, and did some¬ 
thing to the works. And he turned it back to nine. ‘Now we’ll 
put it back,’ he said; ‘then it’ll be up with us. There, now we 
know where we are.’—I was sitting there, looking on. 

“All I can think of is that my wits were not able to bear it 
when they didn’t let me die. 

“For we were all criminals, of course, all that were in there. 
And I was one of the worst, because I was there for life. That 
was quite fair. But beyond that—no, my wits had come to a 
standstill. . . . 

“And then all at once they came and said I was to be set free.” 

“I read the report about you,” said the Professor. “It was 
an uncommonly handsome testimony to exceptionally good 
conduct.” 

“I’ve seen it myself in a paper, some of it,” said Holger, “and 
I don’t understand how they can make up that sort of thing. The 


A Released Convict 249 

whole thing amounts to such a little. I took my punishment and 
wanted it. The others took their punishment and didn't want it. 
That’s all the difference. But of course—to those in charge and 
people who have to do with them, it might easily look like some¬ 
thing more. 

‘‘Well, then I was let out and came back here—I can’t think 
why. To think I couldn’t guess how folks would take it! It 
must have been because I was used to living among criminals, and 
the warders were used to dealing with convicts. And all that 
time everything was at a standstill with me.—Well, when I found 
they wouldn’t give me work here, even then I didn’t see any other 
reason except that they didn’t want to have anything to do with a 
man who had been in jail.” 

He heaved a deep sigh. His weariness from the long fit of 
weeping, which had made his speech monotonous and calm, was 
passing off. He began to rock backwards and forwards on his 
chair. 

“It was a little girl that did it,” he said. “She was playing 
out on the road, and I’d have liked to talk to her: I’ve always 
been fond of little ones like that.” 

He was silent for a minute or so, and then continued in a low, 
heart-rending tone: 

“She was afraid of me. She ran home. 

“Her mother was standing just inside the garden-gate. 

“And then I caught sight of the eyes of both of them. And 
I don’t know how it was, for I didn’t hear their voices, but all 
the same I heard them whisper quite plainly: ‘That’s the man 
who killed the young girl.’ 

“It wasn’t anything in my own thoughts, for I should never 
have called her ‘the young girl.’ 

“I don’t know how I could have gone on like that all those 
years, unless it was that my wits stood still. Now I see it all. 
I see it in all the eyes I meet. And I see it with my own, and 
I know that my wits will go to pieces over it. 

“And I’m only longing for that to happen.” 

“So as to be free?” said the Professor. 

“It’s not to be borne,” said Holger. “Look at these hands. 
It was they that did it. I could burn everything they’ve touched, 
as something accursed. But the hands themselves, they’re part 
of me. 

“And even if I cut them off, it’ll be me that’s done it. You 


250 The Philosopher’s Stone 

can see the proof of that, for if not, the hands would wither, the 
blood wouldn’t run into them. But my blood runs into them. 

“And even if I took a knife and shed my own blood, because 
I wouldn’t have it in me—it would still be me that had done it. 
Through life eternal it’ll always be me that has done it. 

“I am eternally damned.” 

“Don’t you believe in a saviour?” essayed the Professor. 

“Yes, for those who can be saved.” 

“Even the thief on the cross could be saved.” 

“Yes, because he could pray for it. Can I clasp these hands 
and pray for salvation? 

“I am judged. I know it, for the judgment is part of myself. 
The judgment upon what I have done.” 

“Don’t you think the thief had judged himself before he 
prayed ?” 

“I don’t know what the thief had done, but at any rate he 
hadn’t laid hands on her” 

“No,” said the Professor; “even the thief would have spared 
her. 

“Do you remember her dimples? Do you remember her eyes?” 

Holger groaned like a beast that is slaughtered. The Professor 
went on: 

“Do you believe she will suffer eternally for what you did to 
her here on earth?” 

Holger looked up at him without a sign of comprehension. 

“You know, what you did would never have happened if she 
hadn’t gone wrong first,” said the Professor quietly. 

Holger’s heavy eyelids drooped and he said within himself: 

“Now I remember—it was that that made me do—the other 
thing.” 

The Professor had risen and now stood close to Holger. His 
voice subtly adapted itself to his words: 

“It turned out to be her fault that you became a criminal. 
She did not intend it. But she will never have peace in her own 
conscience until you have found peace. 

“It is she who is to save you, Holger.” 

“Well, but the punishment, the punishment for what I have 
done-” 

“That you must take here on earth, where you did wrong. 
You took your punishment in jail and took it willingly. 



A Released Convict 251 

You are not to go away to a place where nobody knows what you 
have done, and where you will only be tormented when you can’t 
escape remembering. You are to remain here and see your crime 
reflected in everybody’s eyes. Every day you will be confronted 
with it anew.” 

“It will be harder, but shall I gain anything by that?” 

“In the same way as when you’re carrying flour up to the loft. 
A whole sack at a time is heavier than a half. But you gain by 
it.—You have destroyed a life here on earth. You are to let 
your own life on earth be destroyed—and by your own will” 

“But if I go mad and lose my wits, I shan’t have borne my 
life through to the end. And how can I keep my wits?—I 
daren’t pray to any god to help me.” 

“I watched you once on the playground many years ago,” said 
the Professor; “one day when you were not far off, losing your 
wits, and had nearly killed a boy. Then you heard a voice call 
"No!’ It was hers.—Can you remember her voice?” 

Holger looked at the Professor with great round eyes. They 
slowly filled with tears, till at last he could hardy see; but he kept 
on staring, as though it was not his eyes at all that he saw with. 

Quietly, but firmly, as though delivering a message from a 
supramundane power, the Professor said: 

“Every time you are about to lose your wits, you will hear that 
voice and that ‘No!’ And, as you did then, you will always obey. 
It is she who is to save you, Holger.” 

Holger got up, still with his eyes on the Professor. 

“There are some who think,” he said slowly, “that you can see 
into heaven and—no,” he suddenly broke off and turned away; 
“you shan’t tell me anything. What you have said about her, 
my heart tells me is true. I don’t need more than that.” 

He went out to his work. 

Now and then he stopped and gazed into space, like a man who 
saw his hard lot and took it upon him; then toiled on, stopped 
again, saw yet more suffering, and took it upon him. Thus he 
went on. 

At the end of the day he came up to the Professor. His 
manner was changed. The look of heavy simplicity that had 
always strayed like a lost dog about his face, was gone. A hard 
hand had brought the whole man under the sway of a single 
thought. It looked as if the vast strength of his body, the violent 


252 The Philosopher’s Stone 

impulses of his temper, and the soft lenity of his heart had been 
combined into a purpose which was incapable of swerving a 
hair’s-breadth from its path. 

He looked at the Professor, who dropped his eyes before all 
this strength confronting him. 

“I know what I think,” said Holger, “but I should like to know 
whether this was what you had in your mind: 

“That little slip she made—became a grave sin through my 
fault, and therefore it must be expiated through me before she 
can find perfect peace. 

“Was that what you had in mind, too?” 

“Yes.” 

Holger looked before him. His head bent in a slow nod that 
made up his account. 

“Then no affliction shall be too great for me. I shall follow 
up my punishment like a sleuth-hound wherever it may lead me, 
until I drop.” . . . 

Children and grown-up people stood outside their gates in the 
mild evening air. With all their eyes upon him, the ex-convict 
walked home to the ramshackle cabin he had leased from the 
parish, which was well aware that money is the only thing un¬ 
polluted in the world, preserving its value no matter whose hands 
it has been in. 

Outside the door he paused and looked up the road. 

“Little children shrink from me,” he said half aloud, “and they 
daren’t go past my house alone in the evening. I’m made an 
example of to scare them: ‘Take care you don’t grow up like 
Holger Enkel If you don’t behave we’ll send you to Holger 
Enke, and he’ll kill you.’ ” 

He entered his door, not like one seeking rest after his day’s 
work. 


XLIV. The Meeting 

D AHL had met Mr. Skaarup in Kongens Nytorv and 
could not get out of going home with him. Skaarup 
had asked for his help with a difficult article in an 
English theosophical review. 

It was a long visit, for there was no end to what Skaarup had 
to say about theosophy. With untiring industry he had erected 
a metaphysical screen around himself, made up from the writings 
of Madame Blavatsky and Mrs. Besant. Within this he sat well 
protected from all life’s influences: he lived in a vacuum where 
the sounds of life died out. 

But at last they got to the English essay and plodded through 
it. Skaarup went out and asked for coffee, came back and re¬ 
sumed his talk about the only thing that filled his mind: the ideas 
of life after death, karma and reincarnation which his imagination 
had constructed from his reading of theosophical literature. 

Dahl’s head ached, he gave up trying to follow and fell into a 
doze, which Skaarup took for meditation. He did not discover 
that anybody had brought in coffee until Skaarup introduced him: 
“My daughter Mai—Mr. Dahl.” 

He raised his eyes and forgot to stand up. 

She stood with the tray in her hands, looking down into his 
eyes, as though seeking something—exactly as that day under 
the beech in the Deer Park. With a subdued look of joy, as 
though she had found what she was looking for, she put the tray 
down on the table, and he stood up and gave her his hand. 

A smile passed over both their faces, and he was on the point 
of saying: “So it was here we were to meet,” as though they 
had arranged or known that sooner or later they would meet. 

What a long, mute, living moment before they let go each 
other’s hands and she left the room! 

Skaarup resumed his harangue about the “secret doctrine”; 
Dahl sat wrapt in happiness outside his metaphysical screen, hear¬ 
ing nothing, but seeing all the more—a dimple, golden-brown 
curls, a tussore dress with a velvet band at the throat, slender 

253 


254 The Philosopher’s Stone 

white fingers. Only her eyes he could not see: they were in him, 
she had left them behind when she stood looking into his. 

Skaarup got hoarse and stopped talking. Dahl got up to go. 
They shook hands, both feeling happy, one at having found a 
good listener, the other with all the world. Skaarup expressed 
a wish to learn more English, Dahl felt a corresponding desire 
to teach him. Skaarup took down a book on “Clairvoyance” and 
thought they might use it for their lessons. The book was a 
thick one, and Dahl said yes. 

Then he left, so full of Mai that he didn’t even look if she 
was in the drawing-room as he went through. Afterwards he 
knew she was not there, and he was glad of it. That would have 
been too much all at once, and would have taken away his deep 
feeling of security. It seemed nonsensical, but so it was. . . . 

Next day he went out to look for a coach. He was going to 
stay in town through the vacation and prepare for the coming 
term, so that he would not have to begin at the very beginning. 

He read industriously. On fixed days he went to Skaarup’s 
and translated “Clairvoyance,” got a glimpse of Mai and a cup of 
coffee. 

After a while he hit upon arriving a little before Skaarup came 
home from the office. Then Mai was always to be found in the 
drawing-room and they could talk to each other. Only a little 
and not for long. From their hushed voices it sounded like 
trifles that were in the thoughts of each. A little smile showed 
how much there was that could not yet be put into words, things 
which might well be seen, but not heard nor wittingly hinted at. 


XLV. Mai 


M AI SKAARUP sat at the piano in what ought to have 
been a mood of dejection. She had condemned her 
music. 

She could not make out the others, her parents, her music- 
master, or Mr. Bjarnoe—“the seraph,” as Mr. Barnes called 
him. How could they say she had talent! The lifeless stuff she 
gave them! 

Talent—ah, yes! She picked up all her music and stuffed it 
into the bottom of the cabinet. 

She went to the window and looked out. She loved the bright 
daylight. 

How wonderful life was! If one had an ardent and lasting 
wish, it was fulfilled. And when it was fulfilled, it turned out to 
be something different and far better than what one wished. 

The eyes of her dreams she had found under a beech in the 
Deer Park. That showed that life could be as it ought to be. 
That was how her girl friend’s eyes ought to look; when she met 
her she would know her by them. She wished it so intensely that 
she felt it must be. 

And one day she really saw them again in Father’s study. 
They were a little different now. When she saw them under the 
tree, she discovered life as it ought to be. When they met her in 
the study she discovered herself, and for the first time she was 
pleased with the picture of Mai Skaarup which she saw in the 
other’s eyes. She remembered how old she was, and felt a quiet 
dignity which was at once entirely new and yet had always 
dwelt in her. It did not matter so much about the girl friend 
now. 

He came every other day. It almost seemed like a romance she 
was making up, for it all happened as she wanted it: she hoped 
he would come a little too soon, and the very next time he came 
—a good deal too soon, and she had to entertain him until Father 
came in. 

When the hour approached she would sometimes think: “It’s 

?55 


256 The Philosopher’s Stone 

only my fancy that he’s coming.” When it was over she was 
jubilantly sure of his existence. 

“But I have an idea that I have always known him,” she 
thought one day; “how can that be?” At that moment she felt 
herself blushing and knew how it was. She had always been 
dreaming. Her dreams, which had slept like birds in a cage, now 
fluttered into the open and swarmed about him. A partition had 
been broken down; there was no difference between life and 
dreaming. 

From that day it was imperative to be with him, to talk to 
him and hear him talk, but from that same day it became in¬ 
credibly difficult to find anything to say. But to-day she would 
question him straight out, for it would be such good fun really 
to know something about one another. 

And when he came she asked him straight out, in a way that 
showed she had had it in her head all day: 

“Won’t you tell me something about yourself?” 

He felt that their intimacy now became obvious, and he wished 
her to know everything about him. 

But when he turned his attention upon his own life to reveal 
to her all he knew about it, it seemed to him suddenly that there 
was hardly anything to say. 

“I should like to tell you everything,” he said, “but, properly 
speaking, I have not lived so very long. It seems strange now 
when I look into myself and try to answer your question. 
Because now I discover that I have been absent a long time. 1 
have. For I don’t think it has been myself at all, these last years, 
but someone who was trying to find me. Several years have gone 
by which seem to have nothing to do with me at all. It sounds 
foolish.” 

“Not to me,” said Mai. “It is the same with me. I have not 
been awake since I went to school. Since then I have been walk¬ 
ing in my sleep. I believe you and I have been alike, but tell me 
all the same.” 

“What am I to tell?” he said with a smile. “Once upon a 
time there was a boy whose name was Jens—and that was me. 
One day he disappeared and a fellow came whose name was Dahl 
—and I thought it was me. One fine day he fell asleep, and a 
young man woke up, whose name was Jens—and that is me, 
sitting here. All the rest, I believe, is some ugly stuff I have 
dreamt. I have never been able to get on with that fellow Dahl.” 


Mai 257 

“Tell me a little about him all the same.” 

“I can’t do that without telling you a little about the boy,” he 
said. 

“I want to hear about him above all ” she said. 

“There isn’t much to be said about the boy,” he began. “There 
was nothing to keep me away from the heaven that dwelt within 
me. I walked in Paradise. 

“But one day it was closed and bolted, and from that day I was 
an outlaw and felt the need of saving my soul. I turned religious. 
I studied theology. Theology drove me out of Christianity. But 
I still had a soul to be saved. I was seeking for something. I 
thought it was God. I know now it was myself. 

“It must have been. For now that I have come back to myself, 
there is nothing to keep me away from my own heaven. I need 
no religion—the one thing I needed before. 

“Perhaps religiousness is the effort of a discordant mind 
towards harmony, and religions are built upon the confessions of 
men who strove and attained. For my own part, I seem to have 
lived through—and beyond—the whole Christian religion. I have 
walked in a paradise of innocence, where I had need of no 
religion. I was thrust out, together with an Eve, and hurled 
down to earth. I experienced the death of Abel, for I felt that 
he whom I acknowledged as myself was dead. I had myself 
killed him. We all have a fratricide within us. 

“Since that time I have been alone, whomever I may have 
associated with. And it is not good for man to be alone. 

“But one day I awoke and saw the beech before the fall, as I 
remembered it when I was a boy. Somebody went past, and I 
looked up into a human eye which was seeking the same life as I. 
Since that day I have not been alone. I see now that if mankind 
is driven out of Paradise with Eve, it returns there with the 
Madonna. Through her comes the child to save mankind. So 
it has been with me. The boy has come back. The man worships 
the Madonna. 

“I have no more to say. I sought after God. If God is love, 
then God is where I am now, and there is nothing in me that I 
need conceal. From any god. Nor from any man. Nor from 
you. What I now feel, I can acknowledge with every part of 
my being. Heaven and earth are one, and there is no difference 
between body and soul.” 

Mai got up. He moved close to her. 


258 The Philosopher’s Stone 

At that moment he heard a step in the hall. As he turned to 
see who was coming, he chanced to touch her arm. When he saw 
her blush and felt the slight quivering of her hand, he knew more 
surely than before that soul and body were one. 

But the door opened and Skaarup came in. 

“This will be our last lesson for the present,” he said. “I’ve 
just heard that I shall have to go to Stockholm on official 
business.” 

“For long?” asked Dahl. 

“No, only a week or so,” said Skaarup, taking Dahl into his 
room. 

After the lesson he accompanied Dahl—much against his wish 
—as far as the front door. 


XLVI. A Singular Lady 


O LD Martha knocked at the door and looked in. 

“It’s Mr. Byarnes,” she said. 

Dahl was surprised. He hadn’t seen Barnes for a 
long time and wasn’t expecting him. They had quietly drifted 
away from each other; it seemed quite natural that they no longer 
met. 

Barnes came in, nodded, and sat down. His expression was 
one of coolness, almost antipathy, but Dahl had a feeling that this 
reserved manner concealed a deep emotion, which was presumably 
the cause of Barnes’ having prevailed upon himself to visit him. 
And it must have cost him an effort, for obviously he could 
scarcely bring himself to speak. 

“You look surprised to see me here,” he said at last. “To tell 
you the truth, I’m surprised myself. I really like you less and 
less. 

“Perhaps it’s the result of a little clasp of the hand you once 
gave me,” he went on; “one day when I’d just been telling you 
something I couldn’t tell anyone else—not any rational person, 
at any rate.” 

He gave a little laugh, half melancholy, half teasing. 

“Either it’s that little clasp of the hand, the first sign that I had 
found a friend, which still possesses me, or else it must be because 
I don’t count you as a rational person.” 

He paused for a moment, wrapt in himself as though no one 
were present. He was filled with a wondering joy, which showed 
in his face. Dahl had never seen him like this. 

But when he looked up and his eyes fell upon Dahl, he changed 
entirely. It was a reserved, barely civil fellow-student who 
spoke. 

“As it happens, I’ve come to you in a roundabout way. I’ve 
been to see the Councillor. It was about a new member for the 
Theosophical Society. No, not myself; I’ve done with that 
rubbish. I believe I told you once that I was engaged in some 
investigations. Here’s a book, if you care to read it. It’s an 

259 


260 The Philosopher’s Stone 

exposure of Madame Blavatsky’s mahatma frauds. And here’s 
another, exposing her disciple Mr. Judge’s forgeries of mahatma 
letters.” 

“And yet you’ve been to see the Councillor about a new 
member ?” 

“Yes.” 

“I can’t make you out,” said Dahl. 

“I can’t either.” 

“Did the Councillor know about these exposures?” asked Dahl 
after a pause. 

“Yes. But he didn’t worry about them. He said he had never 
seen people get hold of anything sacred without desecrating it as 
soon as they’d been kneeling to it for five minutes. But as for 
the application papers, I might take them to Skaarup, as he him¬ 
self had nothing to do with it now. So I went to Skaarup.” 

“He’s not at home,” said Dahl. 

“No, he’s in Stockholm, but thank goodness I didn’t know 
that.” 

He paused and looked at the floor. 

“At Skaarup’s I met a lady,” he said. 

Dahl gave a start. 

“Miss Mai?” he asked. 

“No. A lady from America. A relation of Mrs. Skaarup’s 
lives in California near this lady, and when he heard she was 
making a trip to Europe he asked her to go and see Mrs. Skaarup. 
I think they were at school together.—But Mrs. Skaarup doesn’t 
speak English. The lady is Norwegian-born, so she speaks some 
Norwegian, but that doesn’t help Mrs. Skaarup much, because 
it’s American-Norwegian. So I interpreted. And finally I went 
for a walk with the lady to show her the town. 

“Now I know, after all, why I came to see you. For if I tell 
you any more, you’ll think I’ve gone mad. And you are the 
only person in whom that view doesn’t trouble me, since I myself 
am inclined to regard you as half cracked. I am so far sane. 

“Well, then, I took the lady into town. Mrs. Skaarup thought 
she was a theosophist. I don’t know why, but she thought so. 
However, she’s not. 

“Now, I’ve long been wallowing in metaphysical ruminations, 
the theosophists’ and Hegel’s and everybody else’s, so I longed to 
discuss them with a stranger. Besides, I find English easiest 
for talking abstractions. But I couldn’t get a chance. Every 


A Singular Lady 261 

time I tried to get off a piece of—what I will call wisdom, she 
broke in with a question—how many palaces there were in Copen¬ 
hagen, whether the King had any children besides the Crown 
Prince, and so on. I got dead tired of listening to all these 
foolish questions. I gave her up, let metaphysics go to the winds, 
its proper place, and kept my mouth shut. Then she shut hers 
too, and we walked and enjoyed ourselves. 

“We went out along Langelinje, and there I saw that the water 
was blue. 

“It’s nothing to laugh at, for I have never seen such a living 
blue. Not since the day I lay on my back in a haycock and 
thought in all innocence that I saw into heaven. 

“The cutters lay rocking gently on the blue sound. Their sails 
were white. 

“ ‘That's the way ships sail to America/ said she. 

“I got the idiotic idea that she was not talking of the America 
of geography at all, but of that fresh, untouched America we 
dreamed of when we were boys and read Cooper. I looked at 
the white sails and the blue sound, and I said to the fresh breeze 
I felt in my mind: 

“ ‘Yes, that’s the way to America.’ 

“I don’t remember ever before taking such a liking to a person. 
I didn’t think very much about her, but I was glad she was there, 
and I was ready to walk and walk—to the world’s end. As it 
was, we went as far as we could—to the end of the mole. There 
I turned my back to her and looked along the coast, and thought, 
as I did so, that life on earth could be extraordinarily beautiful. 

“Then I heard her voice, right in my back: 

“ ‘Yes—life on earth can be beautiful.’ 

“I turned round, and she stood looking at me, as if that was 
what we had been talking about all the time. But I hadn’t said 
a word. 

“As I stood there looking into her eyes, I had a feeling that I 
was—psychically—stark naked; that even those corners of me 
which I keep best concealed were fully lighted up. I blushed— 
both at my own weak character and at my silly feeling that she 
knew all. ‘What the devil is there about her?’ I thought. She 
laughed. ‘I can tell you about myself, if you like,’ she said.” 

He paused and looked critically at Dahl. 

“Well, now comes the most absurd part,” he said. “I’ll tell 
it, if only for the sake of hearing how silly it sounds in the telling. 


262 The Philosopher’s Stone 

She was born in Norway, she said. Her father was a poor man, 
who emigrated to America while she was still a child. She was 
blissfully ignorant, had barely learnt to read and write—not par¬ 
ticularly well, as I have seen. They went out West, and she had 
no teachers but earth and sky and the things that grew. She 
lived what she called a natural life. When she was thirty, her 
eyes were opened—that is what she called it—and she was made 
an instrument of higher powers. She now has a school of mental 
hygiene in Los Angeles. 

“I can't bring myself to repeat all she said about the 'higher 
powers’ and their efforts to assist mankind. On my lips it would 
sound like madness, but when she says it, you think you can see 
it. The 'spiritual powers’ are many, she said, and her school is 
attended by people whose nature is akin to the powers she serves. 
But that is not the only place where people are to be found who 
are under the protection of her 'powers.’ On her travels she has 
met several, and has always received injunctions to approach them. 
I don’t know whether you can picture me so, but I stood like a 
child, wondering whether I was one of those under the protection 
of her 'powers,’ and I hadn’t the pluck to ask her, but she an¬ 
swered all the same: 'You are, Mr. Barnes. You were sent to 
Skaarup’s to-day, and I am to stay here some time for your sake 
—and especially for the sake of another.’ 

"I was sent there—yes, by the Councillor, who knew nothing. 
It sounds like the talk of a charlatan; I can tell that. But what’s 
the use of that, if I believe it? I am powerless not to. I don’t 
know what it is about her that paralyses my critical sense and 
makes me believe against my will. I can recall her face clearly, 
and I can’t see anything remarkable about it. She has a gold filling 
in her left eye-tooth; I discovered that when she laughed at one 
of my most elaborate English phrases. Her face is strong and 
pure, but so neutral that you can’t really seize upon any conspicu¬ 
ous quality in it. Unless—well, her eyes sometimes have a clear- 
cut glint, as though she had put a new lens into them. There 
is a golden gleam about her person, caused by I don’t know what. 
Perhaps it is due to the queer metallic ring of her voice and espe¬ 
cially her laugh, which makes me think all the time of gold, ‘the 
red, red gold.’ 

"Goodness knows who the other one is, for whose sake she is 
going to stay some time. 

"We went into the King’s Gardens and sat down. There she 


A Singular Lady 263 

told me all about myself and my endeavours, where they were 
right and where they were wrong. And I felt that everything was 
as she said.” 

“Did the Councillor know anything about her ?” asked Dahl. 

“If so, he would surely have mentioned her,” said Barnes. 
“No one would ignore such an extraordinary being, knowing that 
one was liable to meet her.” 

He got up and looked out of the window. 

“By the way, do you know who it was applying to join the 
Theosophical Society ?” 

He turned and watched Dahl narrowly as he said: 

“It was Katharina Sonne.” 

“Katharina-!” Dahl looked up in surprise. “Katharina— 

has she—I didn’t know she was interested in that kind of thing.” 

“Nor did I,” said Barnes hesitatingly, “until one day she asked 
whether I saw anything of you, and I answered that I never saw 
you, now that you had turned theosophist. Then she asked what 
kind of thing theosophy was, and when I’d explained it she asked 
me to get her into the Theosophical Society. I told her about 
the exposures, but she said she would go into the question herself. 

“I’ve been talking to her mother.” 

Dahl sent him a questioning glance. 

“Yes,” said Barnes. “May I ask you something? Katharina 
is unhappy. You don’t know how she is looking. I asked her 
mother what was the matter with her, and Mrs. Sonne—well, 
she believes her daughter has had the same experience with you 
as she herself had with the cappellano in Rome. And Katharina 
is not getting over it as she did.—May I ask you, was it for re¬ 
ligious reasons that you—that you took yourself off that day? 
Because in that case you ought to be shut up in a madhouse.” 

“It was not,” said Dahl. 

Barnes was silent for a moment. 

“And now she’s joining the Theosophical Society so as to meet 
you!—Poor girl, she’s fighting for her life. 

“How can you—how can you not care about her?” 

“I do care about her,” said Dahl, “and I’m bitterly sorry for 
her, but—but I can’t give her what she expects.” 

“Why?” said Barnes. 

Dahl looked up and Barnes met his eyes. 

“Oh, that’s it!” he said. “Your pitiless happiness shows in 
your eyes. Poor Katharina!” 


264 The Philosopher’s Stone 

“You’re fond of her yourself,” said Dahl. “You’re in love 
with Katharina, Barnes.” 

“In love?” repeated Barnes. “In love?—I don’t know. I 
only know that she doesn’t care for me, and that I always do what 
she asks me, even when I know it’s bad for her.” 


XLVII. Miss Dale 


M AI SKAARUP sat waiting for Miss Dale. She 
thought of the day her mother had come and asked 
her to go into the study and entertain an American 
lady, who had brought a note from Mother’s old schoolfellow in 
California. As a matter of duty she had gone in, and the strange 
lady rose and came towards her. 

At first she saw nothing but her eyes, which were calmly di¬ 
rected upon her and came nearer and nearer from far away, so 
that she fancied this lady had come from the end of the world 
simply and solely to meet her. Already she felt that they were 
old acquaintances from some forgotten past, and before they had 
said a word her head lay on Miss Dale’s bosom and Miss Dale’s 
arm was about her neck. 

Soon they sat laughing and talking as if they had known each 
other always, and she thought her own Danish sounded just as 
odd as Miss Dale’s American-Norwegian. 

Life accommodated itself kindly to her needs and wishes. Even 
her father’s journey to Stockholm came just at that time to suit 
her. Otherwise he would have annexed Miss Dale at once on 
account of her clairvoyance and would then have imagined that 
he too could read people’s thoughts. 

But now she owned Miss Dale entirely; she came every day, 
and though she was over forty Mai did not notice the difference 
in their ages. Miss Dale took a lively interest in everything that 
concerned Mai, entered completely into her little world, and ad¬ 
mitted her to her own fairyland. 

To think that anything so strange could come about so natu¬ 
rally! It made her laugh to recall the first time it happened. 
She thought it was Miss Dale’s sitting so still that had made her 
sleepy. 

She had come into the room while Miss Dale was writing. 

“May I sit with you a little?” she asked. 

“Yes, if you can keep quite still,” said Miss Dale. “I’m writ- 

265 


266 The Philosopher’s Stone 

ing letters to my people in California. I’m telling them that I 
shall be here longer than I thought.” 

Mai seated herself in an arm-chair and waited. 

It was a long letter, and the room was so quiet. Mai’s eyelids 
were drooping, as in the days when her old nurse told her stories. 

Her eyes closed in an unspeakably joyful peace which welled 
up in her heart. She wished she could stop thinking, so that 
there would be more room for this wonderful, living peace, which 
was increasing in volume. She wished she could abandon herself 
to it entirely, fall asleep in it. “If I fall asleep now,” she 
thought, “then I really believe I shall find myself among the 
angels.” She pulled herself together, for she was just dropping 
off, though she was not alone in the room. She looked hastily 
for Miss Dale. 

She was no longer at the writing-table. She must have got up 
very quietly, for she was now sitting on the other side of the 
table, keeping an eye on Mai. When Mai looked at her, she 
smiled: 

“Well, Miss Mai—how do you feel?” 

Mai could see that Miss Dale knew what a lovely time she was 
having. So then it was all right if she gave herself up to it. 
She leaned back and thought she was going off to sleep. 

Then she discovered that she was awake as she had never been 
before. She sat in an arm-chair in Father’s study, by the side 
of the big table. She knew that quite well. And on the opposite 
side of the table sat Miss Dale. But all the joy of heaven was in 
Mai, and her consciousness, which was not thinking but only liv¬ 
ing and observing, reached far beyond its usual limits. Heaven 
and the room were equally real and were both equally near to her. 

When she began to wonder about this and to ask herself how 
it was possible, heaven gradually vanished, but the feeling of 
peace and felicity remained in her heart. She turned her face to 
Miss Dale, who still had an eye on her, like a mother seeing her 
child awake. 

“Well, Mai—how do you feel?” she said as before. 

Mai whispered gratefully: “What a blessed moment!” 

Miss Dale smiled: “How long do you think you were in 
bliss?” 

Mai thought to herself : “A quarter of an hour, I suppose.” 

“Do you know what the time was when you came in?” asked 
Miss Dale. 


Miss Dale 267 

“Yes,” said Mai; “it was five minutes past two.” She looked 
at her wrist-watch and stared speechlessly at Miss Dale. 

The watch showed a quarter to four. 

Miss Dale laughed quietly: “Heavenly time and earthly time 
don’t keep pace with one another.” 

“Was it heaven?” asked Mai. She could not doubt it, but 
would gladly hear it confirmed by an earthly voice. 

“It was” said Miss Dale, “so far as your eyes can see it.” 

“I saw nothing,” said Mai; “I only knew —although,” she 
added a moment after, “I had a feeling as though I saw a living, 
shining substance, which was everywhere, and which descended 
into me.” 

“Well—it was a substance,” said Miss Dale. “It is there 
always. Otherwise you could not live. But it sometimes 
happens that a pure soul may receive a certain volume of this 
heavenly substance and feel it—almost see it, in fact. This 
substance which you saw is what your soul is clothed in when it 
is no longer on earth. It is what the angels are clothed in.” 

“Then there are angels?” said Mai. It did not occur to her 
to doubt Miss Dale’s explanation. 

“There are,” said Miss Dale. 

“Do you see them ?” 

“I see them.” 

And Miss Dale began telling Mai about the celestial world 
which had been revealed to her eyes when she was thirty. While 
she was speaking, Mai knew that it was so; so near did she come 
to seeing it herself. 

“You almost see it when I tell you,” said Miss Dale. “You 
manage better than Mr. Barnes; he believes while I am speaking; 
afterwards he doesn’t know whether to believe or not. He’s in 
a great puzzle.” She laughed. “Mr. Barnes is full of specu¬ 
lations. They take him away from life.” 

“Yes,” said Mai. She suddenly understood Barnes, as though 
she saw clean through him. 

Altogether she had good sight when she was with Miss Dale. 
How clearly she saw her home all at once! Of course she had 
seen it always, but never been clear about it. 

Strange that Father could not see it himself! Did he never 
wonder what had become of the happy look in Mother’s face? 

No, for he was always so sure about the right thing. The 
right thing was what he preached, and he never guessed that every 


268 The Philosopher’s Stone 

virtue that met with his approval became a scourge for his house¬ 
hold. But Mai would one day be able to open his eyes. 

There was a ring of the bell. Her face brightened, it must be 
Miss Dale; she was always punctual. 

A minute later they were sitting together in the study, and 
heaven and earth were again in contact. . . . 

Meanwhile Dahl was on his way to the Skaarups’. He had 
had a bad night, and his few snatches of sleep had been haunted 
by a superstitious fear that he was to lose Mai. It seemed an 
omen that Skaarup had entered the room just at the moment when 
they knew they loved one another. Perhaps they would never 
have a chance of telling each other. Mai might be forced to go 
away. Skaarup might be transferred immediately on his return 
from Stockholm. 

At last he could bear it no longer; he had to go there. He 
could say he had come to borrow a book. If only he could get a 
moment alone with Mai, they would be engaged. 

She came out and opened the door. His superstitious fear 
became almost a certainty. She appeared with a great joy in her 
face and started in confusion, as though she did not know him. 
It was only a second, then she seized his hand in evident delight 
and drew him quickly through the hall. 

“Come,” she said, “you must come in too.” 

Two things surprised him. She who the other day had blushed 
and trembled at a casual touch now seized his hand frankly, and 
certainly without sharing the quiverings he felt right up his arm; 
and her joy at their meeting was of a different nature from his. 
It was not warm and open, as it had been. 

“You must come in too.” How affectionately she stressed the 
word “you.” But, all the same, that was not how a girl spoke 
when she expected a pioposal. 

On reaching Skaarup’s study, she introduced them: 

“Mr. Dahl—Miss Dale.” 

This must be the lady Barnes had talked about. Yes, he saw 
the gold filling when she smiled. 

“Your name is Dahl too? That’s really my name, but in 
America it had been turned into Dale.” 

She took his hand in a decidedly personal but markedly neutral 
way; he had the impression of one who was reluctant either to 


Miss Dale 269 

give or to receive. But her face was friendly, vigilant, observant. 
A strict but perfectly natural purity was stamped on all her 
features. She could harbour no thought that needed concealment. 
But there was a pitiless clarity in her face which made him wish 
he had nothing to be ashamed of. 

After a brief glance, which made him think of what Barnes 
had said about her being able to put new lenses into her eyes, she 
turned to Mai and asked if she had finished the dress she was 
making the other day. Mai, who had seated herself in joyful 
anticipation, looked surprised and a little disappointed, but 
answered that she had not finished it yet. 

“I myself am no good at dressmaking,” said Miss Dale. “But 
I can do dirty work, scrubbing, scouring, washing. I’m good at 
that. I learned all that when we were living on the prairie.” 

“Were you still living on the prairie when you became a clair- 
voyante ?” asked Mai, who would go back to what they were talk¬ 
ing of before Dahl arrived. 

Miss Dale hesitated a moment. 

“Well—I was,” she said. 

Immediately afterwards she started to talk about housekeeping. 
She spoke with intelligence and decision, like an American whose 
only object in life was to be practical. She was! an expert at 
pickling and preserving. 

“We get things done quickly in America,” she said. “We’re 
wide-awake. People in Denmark are half asleep. It’s a great 
thing to be wide-awake. On the other hand, people in Denmark 
are more at peace, they know how to rest, they’re not nervous and 
restless like Americans.” 

“I was asleep right up to the day you came,” said Mai. “Oh, 
no, I forgot, I woke up just before.” Her eyes sought Dahl’s in 
a little smile, which Miss Dale caught. “I woke up one day in 
the Deer Park.” 

“You saw nothing you needed there, Mai,” said Miss Dale 
seriously. “Now you are awake and you will always be so.” 

She began to chat about the Danish railways, which were so 
awfully unpunctual. 

Dahl was not interested in the traffic question; he fell into a 
reverie and wondered at Barnes’ losing his balance over this 
practical American. Had Barnes been dreaming, or had she 
actually talked to him about “spiritual powers” in the same way 


270 The Philosopher’s Stone 

as she was now talking about making jam and about trains which 
now and then arrived on time—“by the favour of Providence” ? 

Suddenly he felt her eyes on him and heard her laugh: 

“Mr. Dahl is thinking about Mr. Barnes,” she said to Mai. 

“Yes—I really was,” Dahl admitted. 

“Have you talked to him—about me ?” asked Miss Dale. 

“Yes—he told me he had met you.” 

She laughed. “Mr. Barnes doesn’t know what to make of me. 
He has a good nature, but his thoughts are all over the place, 
where they ought not to be. I should like to take him with me 
to California and put him right.” 

“I wish you would take me too,” said Mai. 

Dahl felt a stab at his heart. Did Miss Dale mean more to her 
than he did ? It sounded so, but now she was looking at him with 
a smile which told him not to be sorry. 

Miss Dale’s eyes rested seriously for a while on Mai’s face. 
When at last she answered, he heard her voice sound for the first 
time like other people’s. He had not thought of it before, but now 
it dawned on him that it had the same quality as the sounds of 
nature, which are not moved to benevolence or hostility by the 
moods of men. But when she answered Mai a gentle warmth 
came into her voice, and it sounded like an affectionate admission 
when she said: 

“I should be glad to have you with me, Mai.” 

She still kept her eyes on her. Dahl felt an inexplicable fear; 
when the expression of Miss Dale’s face gradually changed, his 
fear passed into wonder. She seemed to be looking up to Mai. 

Mai sighed. “It would make me happy—but then I can’t leave 
Mother. What shall I do, Miss Dale? I simply can’t imagine 
your not being here!” 

“I am not leaving here yet,” said Miss Dale. 

Dahl could not make out why she said it so seriously. Mai did 
not notice it, she was so keen on finding out. 

“How long will you stay?” 

Miss Dale smiled. “Perhaps as long as you want me.” 

“That’ll be for ever,” said Mai. 

Miss Dale made no answer. 

“Till I can see the angels,” said Mai, laughing. 

“Perhaps,” replied Miss Dale quietly. 

“It must indeed be an experience to see an angel,” said Dahl. 
Miss Dale said nothing, as though she did not wish to pursue the 


Miss Dale 271 

subject. But Dahl thought that if she had talked freely about it to 
Barnes, she might well do the same with him and Mai. 

“Barnes thinks you are here for a definite purpose,” he said 
tentatively. 

“Does he mean here in Denmark, or here on earth ?” she asked. 

“Both, I expect.” 

She looked at him a moment and answered evasively: 

“Well, we are all here for a definite reason.” 

“Do you believe everybody is born for a definite reason ?” 

“Everybody.” 

“That reason is not easy to find.” 

She did not answer. Dahl continued: 

“Take those who die soon after birth.—I myself had a brother. 
I was near to heaven when I was with him. I was a child myself 
then, but I can never forget him. He died before life had any 
meaning for him.” 

“Who says that life was to have a meaning for him?” said 
Miss Dale. 

“For whom else?” 

“From what you have just said, it had a meaning for you” she 
said. And as he looked up at her, struck with wonder, she 
continued: 

“You were talking about seeing one of the angels of heaven. 
You ought not to aim too much at that. You ought rather to take 
care that the angels you see with your eyes here on earth acquire 
their full meaning in your life. The full meaning, and the right 
one” 

Her words touched the deepest chords in his being; he put aside 
his criticism and asked candidly: 

“Do you mind telling me more clearly what you mean ?” 

She hesitated an instant and then said: 

“Well—it sometimes happens—and not so rarely as people 
think—that one who has nothing to learn here on earth, one who 
already is an angel, is born in order to live here for a time, because 
no one who sees such a soul can escape feeling good and being 
good. An innocence surrounds such a soul, which causes 
innocence to germinate in those about it.” 

“Oh, Miss Dale,” exclaimed Mai, “you are one of those angels 
yourself!” 

Miss Dale shook her head. 

“No. I am a big, robust human being. I come after the angels 


272 The Philosopher’s Stone 

have gone home, to tell people how the longing an angel has 
awakened within them may become the breath of life. I know all 
that a person can feel, even though I have no part in it, and 
because I know, I am able to warn. The angels themselves, who 
come here on their brief visits, do not instruct, do not teach, they 
simply are. And because they have been here, no one who knew 
them can forget the best within himself. They make the air mild : 
they pass through the world like a beam of sunshine.” 

Dahl started. He had a clear vision of a patch of sunlight on 
the schoolroom floor. 

“It is strange that you should say just that—a beam of sun¬ 
shine/’ said he. “Once when I was a child I used that expression 
of a little girl. It was to Barnes. He declared it was owing to 
her that there was no roughness on the school playground. In 
fact, he said that if there were no creatures like her, everybody 
would go to hell.” 

“Had Mr. Barnes such good sight when he was a child?” said 
Miss Dale. “Ah, I thought as much. Now his eyes are confused 
by too many things.” 

“The joiner’s little Hansine was hardly an angel,” said Dahl 
with a sorrowful smile. “She had a sad fate and a terrible death. 
That at least cannot have been good for anybody.” 

“How do you know that?” said Miss Dale seriously. “Have 
you seen all the results of her life and her death?” 

He looked at her inquiringly, and she continued: 

“Of course I didn’t know the little girl you speak of. But 
possibly it was necessary for her to take upon herself a cruel 
death for reasons which we cannot see, unless we know what it 
led to in others.” 

Dahl shook his head, and Miss Dale went on: 

“On the other hand, it may be that the evil powers have 
succeeded.” 

“The evil powers?” 

“If people could see them at work, if their eyes had not been 
given blinkers, they would go mad with terror of life.” 

The recollection of a distracted night made Dahl shudder. 

“Do you really believe such powers exist?” he asked. 

“I see them,” she answered calmly. 

“You see them?” 

“Yes.” 

There was a short silence. He was beginning to understand 


Miss Dale 273 

Barnes. There was something in her manner which almost made 
it impossible to doubt her words. She was just as calm and 
natural in speaking of “the powers” as when she was talking about 
dressmaking and preserving and scrubbing floors, but there was 
in her a condensation of force, as though she was herself one of 
“the powers.” 

“I don’t as a rule like talking to people about these things,” she 
said, “except when I know I must talk about them. But to you 
I will say that there is a conflict going on throughout the spheres, 
a conflict without quarter between two principles, Light—good¬ 
ness and love—against Darkness—evil self-gratification at any 
cost. And when the evil powers discover a growth, an advance 
towards goodness in a human soul, they seek to frustrate it, often 
simply by turning it in a wrong direction—for instance, by bring¬ 
ing in a little self-joy; after that comes self-gratification, then 
desire of evil for evil’s sake—often without the person himself 
being aware of it before it is too late.” 

Dahl stared at her, speechless. There she sat, calm and clear, 
in broad daylight, repeating almost word for word what the “Evil 
One” had said on that night of agitation. Had it been no 
hallucination? She sat there in calm strength. Her eyes rested 
on him, firm and penetrating. Even on that night of madness he 
had argued with himself about what he saw. Now he felt it as 
an appalling truth. 

“But why?” he exclaimed. “Why is it so?” 

“I don’t know,” she said in her strangely neutral voice. “I only 
know what I see—that so it is. I can’t give an answer to any 
of your why’s. I don’t know why life is, only that it is; I don’t 
know why there is a conflict between Light and Darkness, only 
that there is, and that we must each choose our side in it, and that 
I have chosen. I don’t even know which power will conquer in 
the end. 

“Well, yes, I do know, because I can see that evil self- 
gratification through destruction of others leads to final self- 
destruction. But you, Mr. Dahl, are not to think about these 
things. You are to live within your limitations. There are many 
people in our time who want to see and know things beyond the 
reach of their senses and who strive to train up other senses. It 
leads to no good.” 

“But you yourself?” said Dahl. 

“I did not seek it,” she replied. “It came to me. My eyes 


274 The Philosopher’s Stone 

were opened—not for my self-gratification, but so that I might 
be of more use to the powers I serve. So that I may teach those 
I meet the laws of a natural growth of—of what in each individual 
is the inmost, the divine part of his being. 

“You look at me. I know what you want. You want eternal 
life. Yes, but eternal life is not a life measured by days and 
years. Eternal life is a state of the human soul. It contains no 
desire of continuation of life. It has eternity itself within it, 
and eternity takes no count of days and years. 

“Well, there is a life after death. But that life after death is 
no more eternity than this life on earth. The Eternal himself 
is eternal life. Without him, everything in heaven and earth is 
transitory. Because his life is in us, we are alive. The practical 
knowledge of this, the experience of this, is eternal life. He who 
attains to this is in eternity and does not trouble himself about 
death, or what comes after it. 

“But to you, Mr. Dahl, I have this to say—you must not go 
looking for angels and spheres which are beyond the reach of 
your senses. Be wide-awake with the senses you have, see, hear, 
feel. The eternity for which you yearn is as near to you in this 
world as in any other. It dwells within yourself, and you can 
attain to it in the performance of useful everyday work. Never 
try to get ‘communications’ from another sphere. You are always 
liable to deceptions. Avoid all spiritualism and occultism. Even 
if you think you are gaining insight for a while, you may land, 
before you know it, in total madness. I could tell you a good 
deal about these things, because I see them, but I don’t want your 
thoughts to be there. I will go so far as to say that if an angel 
came down from heaven with a revelation for you, you must not 
abandon your own judgment—I don’t know what you call it in 
Danish, we say common sense. In out time a great many people 
flock to spiritualism and occultism like moths around a lamp, 
believing that there they have the light itself. It is truly ‘occult.* 
It is a black eclipse. 

“True wisdom arises from the eternal life of the human soul. 
That wisdom and your common sense should be your guide—and 
goal. For there is eternal growth in it.” 

She ceased speaking and turned towards the door, as though 
expecting someone. Mai followed her glance and looked at her 
in surprise. 

Dahl’s thoughts drifted back to the time when he moved in “the 


Miss Dale 275 

open” with Lillebror. Suddenly he heard Mrs. Skaarup’s voice. 
She had brought her husband in and was introducing him to Miss 
Dale. 

Skaarup, who was always full of instructive talk, began to 
propound his opinions about the Swedes and their capital. 

Dahl rose and said good-bye. 

Now he understood Barnes; he himself felt impelled to talk to 
him about Miss Dahl. But he would first go home and collect 
his impressions. 

Not until he was sitting on his sofa and heard Miss Bang strike 
a chord on the piano in the next room, did it occur to him that 
once more he had been robbed of a chance of speaking to Mai. 


XLVIII. In the Deer Park 


T HERE had been a meeting of the Theosophical Lodge. 

Skaarup had got Miss Dale to take part in the meeting 
and, as it had leaked out that she was a clairvoyante, the 
members had turned up in full strength. Their expectation of 
hearing news from the spirit-world was, however, disappointed. 
She avoided all questions that concerned the transcendental and 
confined herself exclusively to the human character and its 
possibilities of development in the course of daily work. 

She had nevertheless made a powerful impression, doubtless 
more by her personal authority than by the ideas she expressed. 

Dahl and Mai Skaarup were standing in a group with the 
Councillor, Kjellstrom, Sophus Peterson and “the seraph. ,, 
“She’s all right,” said the Councillor, referring to Miss Dale. 
“She is pretty highly developed anyhow,” Sophus Peterson 
admitted. “I believe, however, it’s due to her having led a chaste 
life, for she has neither read nor studied.” 

“Be sure she knows how to dive into the depths of her own 
being,” declared Kjellstrom. 

“They say she’s a clairvoyante,” muttered the Councillor re¬ 
flectively; “but if that’s so, it hasn’t done any harm to her common 
sense.” 

“Did you hear her voice?” asked the seraph. 

“I couldn’t very well help it, though I am a bit deaf,” said the 
Councillor. 

The seraph’s eyes showed no offence, as they absently glanced 
at the Councillor. 

“Her voice is absolutely direct” he continued; “it is the 
perfectly pure expression of her being. Other people’s voices pass 
through their self-conception and are coloured by it; what you 
hear is more a fond view of their excellent ego than that ego 
itself. With her the voice comes direct. It is the tone of the 
soul.” 

Miss Dale, who had been talking to Skaarup, glanced suddenly 

276 


In the Deer Park 277 

at the seraph and stopped. She thought for a moment and then 
went over to him. 

‘‘I have something to say to you,” she said. 

The seraph bowed graciously and was all ears. 

“No, you’re to listen to my words” she said; “you are not to 
listen for music. What I have to say to you is a warning. You 
must be constantly on your guard against impetuosity; take care 
it doesn’t get the upper hand with you.” 

Barnes, who had just left Katharina Sonne to speak to Dahl, 
started and examined Miss Dale attentively. 

The seraph looked surprised. “I—I’m not in the habit of 
being impetuous,” he said mildly. 

“No,” she answered, “but I have been watching you during the 
meeting, and I know that you are prone to sudden impulses. You 
have accustomed yourself to be open to inspirations. But not 
all inspirations are good. It is dangerous to leave your doors 
open in every kind of weather. One ought to be able to shut one’s 
door when one chooses.” 

The seraph bowed politely, but evidently without understanding. 

Miss Dale would have said more, but Skaarup came and claimed 
her attention. 

“Now what the devil was that?” said Barnes in an undertone 
to Dahl. “It was uncanny.” 

Dahl laughed. “I can’t see anything in it but an ordinary piece 
of good advice—which in this case seems to be superfluous.” 

“Of course,” said Barnes; “of course. I suppose I’m the only 
one who is hysterical about my friend the seraph—as I told you 
once before. When she spoke to him it came over me again. I 
should so much like to take him away to some out-of-the-way 
corner and see that no harm came to him.—But now you must do 
me a favour. Katharina Sonne has just asked if I wouldn’t go 
for a walk in the Deer Park. Now make her happy just this once 
by granting the wish that she couldn’t say out but that was implied 
in her suggestion to me—come with us.” 

“Ye—es,” said Dahl, hesitating, “but—do you mind if I ask 
Miss Skaarup if she will come too?” 

“Mai Skaarup?” said Barnes, scanning Dahl for a brief 
moment. “I don’t quite know—oh, yes, it’s just as well. You 
ask her, and I’ll tell Katharina that you will come, at any rate.” 

He went across to Katharina. 

“I’ve asked Dahl whether he and Miss Skaarup will come with 


278 The Philosopher’s Stone 

us,” he said. “He’ll come, at all events, and I got him to ask 
Miss Skaarup, so we shall hear whether she’s coming.” 

“Is that her he’s talking to now ?” asked Katharina. 

“Yes.” 

“She’s pretty.” 

“Yes,” said Barnes, “she’s very beautiful—and very good.” 

“Do you know her well?” 

“No, I’ve only met her a few times.” 

“But still you know that she’s good?” 

“Oh, well,” replied Barnes, “I only know it because there’s 
nothing else she could be.” 

Katharina attempted a smile. “Are you in love ?” 

“Not yet,” said Barnes. 

“But on the way to it?” 

“Not that either.” 

Dahl came towards them, bringing Mai. Katharina gave him 
her hand. “It’s a long time,” she said. 

“Yes,” he answered, “it-” He looked at her pale, thin face 

and could say no more. Barnes introduced Mai Skaarup. 

“There’s a train in a few minutes,” he said. “We can just 
catch it if we go now.” 

Dahl and Katharina walked a little in front of the others. 

“You don’t ride any more either,” she said. 

“No,” he answered. “I haven’t time. I must work hard. I’ve 
been neglecting the University all this year.” 

“And is your reading to blame for your never coming to see us 
now?” she asked. “Or have we—have I said or done anything to 
offend you?” 

Her voice sounded hushed. There was something simple and 
touching in its note which he had never noticed in her before. He 
found it impossible to answer a word. 

“If I have,” she continued, “won’t you tell me what it is?” 

She raised her eyes to him in a despondent appeal; they looked 
as if her life depended on what he would say. The profound 
dejection of self-condemnation weighed upon him. 

“You?” he said at last. “You have done nothing to me but 
good. But—but I’m—you don’t know what a miserable creature 
I feel in your presence—I’m not worth your wasting a thought 
on me.” 

A look of joy lighted up her face. Something of her old energy 


In the Deer Park 279 

and gameness came back. She asked, cautiously but yet earnestly: 
“Won’t you tell me what it is that is tormenting you?” 

He saw the generous impulse of her heart and could not deal 
it a blow. 

“Perhaps, another time,” said he, “when we are alone.” 

He stopped, waiting for the others. This brought them near 
enough to release Barnes from answering Mai’s question: 

“Isn’t Miss Sonne strong? It gave me quite a shock to see 
how pale and thin she is.” 

In the train the conversation dragged. Katharina sat still, 
leaning forward. Barnes, who knew her well, saw that her brain 
was working energetically. He guessed that when they reached 
the forest she would run headlong into her unhappy fate, and he 
thought it was better so, but was anxious about what might 
happen. He decided to keep near her, though by so doing he let 
Dahl and Mai leave the train first and get a little distance ahead. 

To cover their happy want of consideration, he began to talk 
animatedly to Katharina, who was not listening. At last, how¬ 
ever, she noticed that his manner became more and more unnatural. 
She liked him and would gladly help him if she could. 

“You’re sorry about something,” she began; but on seeing his 
eyes full of a tenderness of which she was clearly the object, she 
broke off in alarm and said: “Let’s hurry on; the others are a 
long way ahead.” 

Dahl and Mai had entered the path on which they had seen 
each other for the first time. Neither said anything; they knew 
too well each other’s thoughts. Both had forgotten that Barnes 
and Katharina were behind them. 

On reaching the great beech, they stopped simultaneously. 
Dahl looked up into its foliage and could still see that it was a 
beech before the fall. Mai looked down upon the ground, where 
she had seen him lying. She knew the place and smiled. He felt 
it and turned towards her. 

The other two had walked so quickly that Barnes was quite out 
of breath. 

“You must have forgotten that I’m not in such good training 
as you,” he said to Katharina. “Do you mind if we take it a 
little easier? The others have stopped to wait.” 

“They haven’t seen us at all,” said Katharina. 

“But they’ll turn around,” said Barnes. 


280 The Philosopher’s Stone 

Katharina clutched his arm forcibly. She was white in the face 
and he hastened to support her. 

She tore herself free and turned away. 

“Come away!” she said. “Can’t you see? He’s just pro¬ 
posing !” 

She pressed her hand tightly to her breast; he saw she was 
again on the point of falling and hurried to her. 

She laughed aloud. 

“You mustn’t laugh,” he said. 

She laughed still more convulsively, a painfully dry and soulless 
laugh. 

“Why not?” she said. “Shan’t we get engaged too?” 

“Katharina,” said Barnes sadly, “you don’t know what you’re 
saying.” 

“Yes, I do,” she said. “I’m quite serious.—But perhaps you 
don’t care either—perhaps you don’t care for me ?” 

“Whether I care for you or not is beside the point to-day. 
But let me see you home.—There are the others.” 

When Dahl turned towards Mai under the great beech, his 
whole past vanished from his mind. All was so perfect that 
there was scarcely room for a wish; he tried to find a word which 
could express all he felt, looked at her, and found it. 

“Mai!” 

He put out his hand to her, and as she was about to give him 
hers, he heard Katharina’s desperate laughter. 

Mai saw his hand drop and the light in his face go out. It 
was as though the heavy black clouds which were gathering above 
the tree-tops had cast their shadows upon him. He bent his 
head and looked at the ground. She almost thought he was 
hiding his eyes from her. 

At last he looked up at her. “We’d better join the others,” 
he said. “They’re waiting for us.” 

“Perhaps they’re afraid of the weather,” said Mai. “I think, 
too, it would be wise to find shelter.” 

Barnes turned round sharply as they came up. Katharina 
was still standing with her back to them. 

“I’m going home,” said Barnes. “I’m not very well, and I 
don’t trust the weather. Miss Sonne thinks it’s a pity I should 
go by myself, so she’s going too.” 

“We were just talking about shelter,” said Mai. “I propose 
we all go home.” 


In the Deer Park 281 

“Then let’s be quick,” said Barnes, and went on ahead with 
Katharina. 

The platform was packed with people and there was a long 
queue at the ticket-office. The train came in, filled, and started 
before they managed to get tickets. 

“Let’s go by tram,” said Dahl; “they run every second.” 

Before they reached the tramway the storm burst, first a sharp 
shower of hail, then cold, drenching rain. 

The tram-car was full too, but there was room in the open car 
at the back. As they took their seats in it, Mai Skaarup caught 
sight of Katharina’s face. 

“You’re ill!” she exclaimed. “You can’t stand this. Put 
on my cloak.” 

“No,” said Katharina. 

Mai was taken aback for an instant at her hard, almost angry 
tone. “But why?” she asked. 

Katharina bent her head, pressed her lips together, and shut 
her eyes. A tear or two fell upon her dress. 

Barnes quickly took the cloak from Mai and wrapped it 
around Katharina so as to conceal her head and face. Then he 
sat bending towards her, as though to prevent the wind blowing 
the cloak open. This made it impossible for the others to see 
how her body was shaken with silent weeping. 

“Do you think you will be all right in that thin dress in this 
weather?” Dahl said to Mai. 

“Yes,” she said. “I’m strong. And besides, I’m so happy 
that I couldn’t possibly be ill.” 

But the rain lashed and the cold stung through the thin white 
dress, the same she had had on the first time he saw her. She 
sat cringing, and the colder it grew, the hotter he was with fear; 
he thought the tram stopped hours at every halt. 

On reaching town, Katharina and Barnes got off. Katharina 
handed the cloak to Mai. “Thanks,” she said. 

“Won’t you keep it?” asked Mai. 

“No, thanks.” 

Barnes pulled her over to another car. 

Mai wrapped the cloak about her. 

“It’s not much use now,” said Dahl. 

“N—no,” said Mai; “It was pretty cold. But I think I’m be¬ 
ginning to get warm inside.” 

Down by the Citadel they got off. 


282 The Philosopher’s Stone 

‘‘It’s a good thing I haven’t far to go,” she said. "I'm so 
awfully tired I can hardly drag my feet along.” 

He took her arm; she smiled as he did so, but he was too 
much afraid to be really glad. He could feel a cold shudder 
go through her every instant. 

When they reached the Skaarups’ door she said: “I should 
have liked so much to spend the afternoon with you, but—but 
I believe I ought to go to bed.” 

“Why, you’re not ill ?” he said in alarm. 

“No, no, but I think I ought to try and get warmed right 
through. You’ll come soon, won’t you?—To-morrow, perhaps?” 

She smiled. But her eyes were misty and somehow not quite 
her own. 


XLIX. The Angels 

N EXT day Dahl called at the Skaarups\ Skaarup him¬ 
self was at the office, said his wife. “My husband 
won’t be home for a couple of hours.” 

“I hope Miss Mai is none the worse for the wetting yester¬ 
day,” said Dahl. 

“We—ell, it didn’t do her any good,” said Mrs. Skaarup. 
“She caught a bad cold; she’s in bed with influenza.—Oh, it can’t 
be anything serious,” she added, smiling at the alarm in Dahl’s 
face. “She’s young and strong. In fact, I believe she’s sleeping 
it off at this moment.” 

The day after, Dahl called again. Mai was not yet up. 

“She sleeps and sleeps,” said Mrs. Skaarup. “But every time 
she wakes, she looks so pleased and happy. T’m having a lovely 
time,’ she says. ‘I just feel so faint that I can do nothing but 
sleep, and sleeping is as lovely as being in heaven. Sometimes I 
really think I am there.’—I believe she can almost feel that na¬ 
ture is making her well while she is asleep.” 

“Does Miss Dale know she’s ill?” asked Dahl. 

“Oh, yes!” said Mrs. Skaarup. “Miss Dale is here all day. 
As soon as Mai wakes she goes in and sits with her, and Mai 
is so happy; she loves Miss Dale.—By the by, Mr. Barnes is 
here just now; he’s in my husband’s study, talking to Miss Dale. 
Since Mai has been ill he has come every day, because, you see, 
Miss Dale spends the whole day here now. Well, they’re in the 
study, if you’d like to speak to them.” 

“No, thanks,” said Dahl; “I won’t disturb them. I’d rather 
come another time—when Miss Dale’s alone.’ 

He managed to let two days go by before calling again at the 
Skaarups’. Mrs. Skaarup seemed less at her ease than before. 

“It’s not going so well as I hoped. We’ve had to send for 
the doctor. Her temperature is high; but then she’s young 
and strong, he says. She’s awake at the moment. Miss Dale 
is with her and they want to be alone, so I’m in here and I’m very 
worried. Miss Dale is leaving soon, she says. But I hope she’ll 

283 


284 The Philosopher’s Stone 

stay till Mai is well again. I don’t think Mai can do without 
her at all, while she’s in this weak state. 

Dahl went away feeling uneasy.—Miss Dale was leaving soon. 
“I shall stay here awhile for your sake and for the sake of an¬ 
other,’’ she had said to Barnes. The other was, of course, Mai. 
And to Mai she had said that she would stay perhaps as long as 
Mai wanted her!—Barnes came every day to see Miss Dale. 
What did they talk about? Barnes must know something. 

He went to the college and knocked at the door of Barnes’s 
room. 

“He’s not at home,” said the student who had the rooms op¬ 
posite. 

“Do you know when he’ll be back?” asked Dahl. 

“No, he’s gone away.” 

“Gone away? Where to?” 

“I don’t know. Perhaps you can find out from the dean; 
I know he had a talk with him before he went.” 

Dahl went to the dean of the college. All he could find out 
was that Barnes had gone home to the parsonage. 

“Are you an intimate friend of Barnes?” the dean asked. “If 
so, perhaps you can tell me what he has in his mind. His 
scholarship still has a year to run. But yesterday he informed 
me that he thought of giving it up; he was going home to speak 
to his father about it. But in any case I might consider his 
rooms vacant, he said. I asked him whether he had come into 
money, but he hadn’t. He gave me rather a high-strung im¬ 
pression and I felt sorry about it; he’s a painstaking and con¬ 
scientious student. Do you know anything about his motives ?” 

No, Dahl knew nothing. 

So Barnes had gone home to the parsonage. 

Now he would have to speak to Miss Dale. 

But suddenly his courage failed him. 

He walked about the streets all the afternoon to calm his feel¬ 
ings. Towards evening he directed his steps to Miss Dale’s hotel. 

But perhaps she was still with Mai. So he went there. 

No, Miss Dale was at her hotel. It was the maid who told him. 

“How is Miss Mai?” he asked. 

She shook her head and dried her eyes. 

“The doctor’s just gone,” she said, “and he looked very 
serious.” 


285 


The Angels 

Dahl hurried to the hotel. 

Miss Dale was in her room. Her face had a tense look of con¬ 
centration; she gave him no greeting when he entered. 

“Am I disturbing?” he asked. 

“Well—yes,” she answered, moving her hand as though to take 
up the telephone. She dropped her hand again and said quickly: 
“You can stay all the same—but you must sit still and not say 
anything.” 

Her expression was still tensely observant, but he could not 
tell what she was listening and watching for. 

All at once she said: “Now Mai is waking up. She’s asking 
for me. Be silent. Don’t move. Sit quite still. There’ll be a 
telephone call in a moment.” 

She laid her hand on the receiver and listened. 

Dahl could hear her breathing and the beating of his own 
heart. 

The telephone rang. Miss Dale had the receiver at her ear 
before the bell stopped. “Yes, it’s me.—Yes. Tell Mai I’m 
coming right now.—Get a taxi,” she said to Dahl. 

He ran downstairs. There was a stand just in front of the 
hotel. When the taxi came up she was already in the street. 
“Yes—you can come too if you like,” she said, after a brief glance 
at him. 

It was not far to the Skaarups’. Neither said anything on the 
way. 

The maid opened the door. She was crying. 

“They think she’s dying,” she said. 

Miss Dale made no answer but walked rapidly through the long 
passage. Outside the door she stopped for an instant. They 
could hear Mai’s voice. Dahl saw Miss Dale’s face close and 
stiffen into an austere, inhuman strength. She stood motionless 
and seemed to be absorbing force from something he could not 
see. 

Then she opened the door, and as she did so her face showed 
the usual smile with which she always greeted Mai. 

Mai was just awake from a lovely sleep. When she saw her 
parents with tears in their eyes, she knew they thought she was 
going to die. Then she saw death with their eyes and felt towards 
it as they did; she was afraid and began to cry. 

When the door opened, she turned her face to Miss Dale. 


286 The Philosopher’s Stone 

“They think I’m going to die,” she said. “Is it true? I want 
so much to live. I have only just began to be really alive. Do 
you think I shall die?” 

Miss Dale sat on the edge of her bed and took her hand. 

“Yes, Mai,” she said quietly. “It is true. You are going home 
now. Don’t cry. You have already been home, while you were 
asleep. You have only come here now to say good-bye. 
Haven’t you been dreaming about the angels?” 

“Yes,” said Mai; “wait a minute—no—yes, it is really you. 
You know it. You see the angels. Don’t you?” 

“Yes,” said Miss Dale, “I see them. In a little while you will 
see them too. Be sure someone is coming for you.” 

“Will you stay with me till then?” asked Mai. 

“I shall stay with you till they come,” said Miss Dale. 

Mai looked up into her face and smiled. 

“Thanks,” she said, and closed her eyes. The smile stayed on 
her lips. 

Mrs. Skaarup bent over her. 

“Do you feel happy?” 

“Lovely,” whispered Mai. “Just as I do when I’m asleep.” 

A little while after, she looked up at Miss Dale. 

“Will they let me die now?” 

Miss Dale smiled: “You must wait a little while yet.” 

“Why?” Mai begged. There was a sweet impatience in her 
smile. 

Miss Dale gave a subdued laugh: “Because your dress is not 
quite ready yet.” 

It seemed to Dahl that Mai laughed too. Her laugh could not 
be heard, but he could see she was laughing. 

“A dress made of that stuff you were talking about once,” she 
said. “Will the angels bring it? Then at last I shall be able to 
see it.” 

She closed her eyes and lay still with her hand in Miss Dale’s. 
A deep silence fell upon the room, so still that they all un¬ 
consciously muffled their breath. 

All at once something happened which made the stillness deeper 
than they could bear. 

Miss Dale’s eyes were fixed above Mai’s pillow. Dahl saw her 
bow her head with a gentle nod and heard her say in a low voice: 
“Yes.” 


The Angels 287 

She bent over Mai and said: “Now, Mai, your dress is ready. 
Say good-bye. They have come to fetch you. ,, 

Mai turned her head to her parents. They knelt down and 
kissed her right hand. Her left still lay safe and quietly in Miss 
Dale’s. 

Dahl stood at the foot of the bed. As Mai’s eyes moved back 
from her parents to Miss Dale, they glanced across him. A bright 
smile broke out on her face, as though she would say something 
kind to him; but at that moment her head sank back on the pillow 
and the smile grew stiff. 

Miss Dale let go her hand. Without looking at the others, she 
made a gesture that they were to go. 

They went outside and waited—how long none of them knew. 

When Miss Dale came out she stood for a moment and looked 
at them. There was a calm purity about her, as though she did 
not belong to this world. If she had told them that Mai had 
risen from the dead, they would have believed her. But she 
said: 

“Now those who wish may go and see the body that Mai used. 
But no one may weep because she does not need it any more.” 

Dahl had had no desire to weep. He had scarcely felt his own 
existence. His whole soul had been with Mai. He had come 
so near to self-oblivion that he shared in her last moments without 
feeling that he was one of those from whom she was parting. 
Even when her smile grew stiff, it only seemed to mean that she 
would smile at him eternally. Only when he went out in obedience 
to Miss Dale did he feel the parting, but he did not yet understand 
that Mai was dead. 

When Miss Dale returned he knew it. And when he came out 
into the street, the world withered. 


L. To America 


T HE steamer made fast to the quay in the little market 
town. Barnes went ashore and nodded in passing to 
one of his old masters, whose outline had become mon¬ 
strous through beer. When he had first come to the school he 
had been as young and slight as a lieutenant. 

Barnes climbed the hilly street and crossed the square, stopping 
for a moment outside a watchmaker’s. It was there he had once 
stopped Helen Stromstad and told her she ought to be careful of 
the people she was associating with. A few steps farther on it 
was that he had received sail-maker Berg’s quid of tobacco in his 
ear. 

Berg was no longer standing there. No doubt he was dead. 
And Helen’s mother was dead. Who could be living in her 
house ? 

He looked in at the window as he passed, but there was no face 
behind the panes. 

Helen was sitting in the garden. She had moved into her old 
home after her meeting with the Professor on the bluff. She 
saw nobody. Alone she went every day to the office, as pure in 
mind as when she had lived at home as a young girl. Then she 
had been unconsciously pure, but now she was so from deliberate 
choice. People who came into the office were apt to drop their 
eyes in speaking to her; for this deliberate choice gave her eyes 
a strength and depth which the good people of the town and 
country-side were not able to face for long at a time. 

Barnes went on along the country road. He had much to think 
about. He had to tell his father that he wanted to give up his 
studies and go to America with Miss Dale, and he had to give 
valid reasons for doing so. This last would not be easy. What 
reasons could he give which the old clergyman would understand ? 
It seemed more difficult here in these familiar scenes than when 
he was talking to Miss Dale in Copenhagen. If she was not in 
Copenhagen—that is to say, if Mai Skaarup was dead—when he 
returned, he was to take the next boat to America; she would 

288 


To America 289 

join the boat in Christiania. It was all arranged, but he did not 
look forward to telling his father. 

He was tired of rehearsing his explanation and began to look 
about him. Everything was as before. 

No; the Professor’s house had become a wooden-shoe shop. 
Was the Professor dead, or had he gone away again? 

He could ask the shoemaker. He couldn’t see him properly, 
because Per Madsen was standing in the way. Per stood on one 
leg, while the shoemaker measured the other shoe. Now he could 
see him. 

What in the name of all the devils-?! The wooden-shoe 

maker was the Professor himself. He was engaged in cutting 
notches in a stick after measuring Per Madsen’s evil-smelling 
wooden shoe. 

He walked on, wondering whether the Professor was stricken 
with madness or poverty. 

Next day he had a long talk with his father. Pastor Barnes 
had a depressed look as they left the study. 

“No,” he said, ‘‘I can’t say I understand you. You say there’s 
a ‘school for the development of character’ at Los Angeles, and 
you want to go there and study. That I can understand, but what 
I can’t see is why it shouldn’t wait until you have taken your 
degree. I have a feeling that you are hiding from me your most 
cogent reason—no, no, I have no wish to be intrusive. I know 
that if you could tell me, you would do so. I can yield to your 
reason without learning it. I shall make over to you the money 
your mother left you. I have confidence in you. I have never 

seen you allow a whim or a wild impulse to upset your rational 

plans. If, therefore, you appear to be doing so in this instance, 
I shall assume that it is I myself who have grown too old to be 
able to keep pace with you and understand you. I feel that your 
determination to leave the country is firm and well considered. 
You, and not I, are the one who must determine your life. And 
I see that in this you have no hesitation.” 

“I have one,” said Christian. “You will be very lonely, 
Father.” 

“Loneliness is the companion of old age,” said Pastor Barnes, 
“and to me it is the lesson of life, I am beginning to learn it. 

My loneliness is not to weigh upon you.” 

It did so nevertheless, and it would have been comforting to 
fly from it and leave at once. 


290 The Philosopher’s Stone 

But he would stay with the old man as long as he could. No¬ 
body knew if they would ever see each other again. They spent 
the whole day together and exchanged more ideas in this short 
time than they had done in all their lives. 

On Sunday he went to church and heard his father preach. 

“There were not many in church,” said Pastor Barnes as they 
walked home. “It is not always so empty as it was to-day— 
though the difference is only slight.” 

“But I got the impression that they are very fond of you,” said 
Christian. 

“Oh, yes,” said the pastor, “I believe so too—when I’m alone 
with them. They are often very sincere with me.” 

He walked in silence for a few paces, then looked suddenly 
at his son, drew himself up, caught himself doing so, and said 
with a smile of self-irony: 

“I’m not in the habit of giving myself airs, but it seems that 
with you I shall never overcome the wish to show off. Do you 
know that once my church was generally overcrowded?” 

“I have a sort of recollection that they used to come from a 
long way off to hear you,” said Christian. “In my memories of 
childhood you are always the centre of a large, attentive and ad¬ 
miring congregation.” 

“It is strange that I should be glad at your remembering that,” 
said Pastor Barnes, “because it was a fraud. It was talent and 
nothing else. I have renounced it—but in a self-contradictory 
way I am glad that you should know I had talent.” 

The conversation seemed to be taking a turn which they usually 
avoided, and Christian looked about for a change of subject. He 
pointed to the garden. “How well it is kept!” he said. 

Pastor Barnes smiled. “The credit is not due to me, but to 
Holger Enke. You know, he has been released from prison. 
The farmers here wouldn’t give him work. They can’t forget 
little Hansine.” 

“So you gave him work?” 

“Well, it was really the Professor; he got me to do it.” 

“What’s the matter with the Professor?” asked Christian. 
“He’s selling wooden shoes now.” 

Pastor Barnes laughed. “Yes, it’s one of his happy thoughts. 
He takes the measurements and sells the shoes, but it’s Holger 
who makes them. People soon found this out and made a fuss, 


To America 291 

a great deal of fuss, saying they wouldn’t touch anything Holger 
Enke had made.” 

“What did the Professor say to that?” 

“Well—he gave one of them, a farmer’s man, a thrashing, by 
all reports an extremely—emphatic one, and asked ‘what the hell 
the dirty swine meant by it’—I quote him literally; the Profes¬ 
sor’s language adapts itself rather freely to the inspiration of the 
moment—and he persuaded the others that if they could buy 
toys made by convicts they didn’t know, they could also buy 
wooden shoes made by one they did know. In any case, they 
deal regularly with the Professor. Whether it is the thrashing, 
the argument or the prospect of a good story that has influenced 
them, I don’t know.” . . . 

A week later Christian Barnes said good-bye to his father and 
walked into the little town. It was strange how little hold his 
native place had on him. There was nothing he regretted leaving. 
Well, his father of course, but that was out of regard for the 
lonely old man. He himself had nothing to tie him, either here 
or in Copenhagen. 

He went out of his way to pass the grammar-school, looked 
across the playground, and listened to the noise. There was 
nothing here he cared to remember. 

He walked on, relieved. There was the garden. He stopped 
at the gate, where little Helen Stromstad used to wait for him on 
Thursdays in their playtime. He had forgotten to ask who lived 
there now. He looked over the gate, to see if by chance some 
other little girl with soulful eyes was playing in there. The gar¬ 
den was as quiet as a churchyard. He stood there a long time. 

“So that was it,” he thought, as he walked on. “A Thurs¬ 
day playtime, a garden-gate, a little girl still in the lower school, a 
chat about nothing—that is what I take with me and should be 
sorry to lose. That is really all—and yet I don’t feel poor!” 

The day before he sailed, he went to say good-bye to Dahl. 

Old Martha opened the door to him. 

“Is it you, Mr. Byarnes?” she said mournfully. “You’ve come 
to see Mr. Daahl? He isn’t here any more!” 

“He isn’t here?” 

“No,” said the old woman, putting the corner of her apron to 
her eyes. “He isn’t here.—Won’t you come in? Here you can 


292 The Philosopher’s Stone 

see—here’s his empty room. Won’t you sit down a bit? I’ll 
have to sit down myself. I’m old and tired.” 

“Where is he?” asked Barnes. 

“I don’t know,” said old Martha. The tears ran down the fur¬ 
rows in her cheeks. “He came in here one day and said he was 
moving. I couldn’t believe I’d heard right, and so I asked him. 
He didn’t answer a word, just went on packing. And then I 
could see it. I made so much of him. ‘Where are you going to 
move to, Mr. Daahl?’ I said. He didn’t answer a word, just went 
on packing. So then I said again: ‘When Mr. Byarnes comes, 
or when there’s a letter for you, what address shall I say?’ Then 
he answered me-” 

A short, awkward sobbing checked her speech for a moment, 
but she quickly pulled herself together and went on: “Then he 
answered ®me: ‘I have no address.’ You should have seen how 
he looked, Mr. Byarnes! Just as if he was dead already. I was 
so frightened that I shook all over. ‘You’re not thinking of 
death, Mr. Daahl?’ said I. ‘Not by my own hand,’ he said. 
‘Will you promise me that?’ said I. ‘I promise you that,’ said 
he. ‘I’m only going to move somewhere or other,’ said he. And 
then he came and put his arms around my neck, just as if he’d 
been my own son, and said: ‘Thank you for being so good to 
me.’—Ah, well, I did what I could for him, because I couldn’t 
help it. I only hope he’ll find one that’ll look after him well. 

“Don’t you know what was the trouble with him, Mr. Byarnes ? 
There was somebody he was fond of. It can't be that she 
wouldn’t have him?” 

“She died,” said Barnes. 

“Oh, dear,” said the old woman quietly. “Poor young thing! 
Here am I, an old body; if I could have bought her life for him 
with my own, I might have been some use after all.” 

Barnes got up. She saw him out. 

“If you meet him some day, Mr. Byarnes,” she said, “won’t 
you thank him for what he said to me before he went?” 

“Yes,” said Barnes, “if I see him.” 

She stood there, lonely and old, in the door of the empty room. 
He hadn’t it in his heart to say what little likelihood there was of 
his meeting Dahl. 

Next day he went on board the boat. 



Book III 


LI. Peace and Happiness 

A N event of profound importance had taken place at Per 
Madsen’s cottage, now owned by Hans Olsen and Ellen 
Nielsen. They had got a daughter, a “little Ellen,” as 
Hans Olsen said; but big Ellen answered: “No, Hans; you know 
she’s to be called Hansine.” 

“I forgot,” said Hans; “but then we’ll have to say Ellen Han¬ 
sine Olsen.” 

They had just been watching her fall asleep and were now going 
for their usual evening round through the stable and over the 
fields. 

The horse whinnied as soon as they came in; Hans gave him 
a little oats and chaff and patted his shining brown flank before 
they passed into the cowshed. 

There was a smell of new-cut clover among the cows. 

Hans Olsen chuckled. 

“What is it?” asked Ellen. 

“I can’t get over my surprise that we’re the owners of three 
cows and a whole horse,” he said; “and yet here I am coolly 
figuring out how soon we can get four more cows and two 
horses.” 

“So you seriously think we’ll manage to buy Niels Jorgensen’s 
place too?” said Ellen. “Then we shall actually be farmers.” 

“Ye—es,” said Hans; “little Ellen in there will wake up one day 
to find herself a farmer’s daughter. Ah, but it’s a fine thing to 
have somebody to work for.” 

They went out into the fields. The crops looked fine, just as 
they should be. 

“It’s jolly the way we work in partnership,” said Hans. “First 
we do our share, and then comes Nature—the air and the sun 
and the rain—and does the rest. I could never fancy myself 
working at anything but the land. Look at the peace there is over 
it all. Shall we sit down here under the thorn-bush? There 
goes the sunset-bell. Old Kristen must be finding it a hard climb 

295 


296 The Philosopher’s Stone 

to get up the tower now. ‘But I’ll stick to it/ he says, ‘till the 
day they come to bury me.’ 

“How is it, I wonder, that you always hear voices, like, in the 
air all about, towards evening when it's quiet ? When I was little 
it used to make me quite frightened, if I was alone, to hear all 
these voices sort of whispering to me whichever way I turned. 
Listen.” 

They sat for a good while listening. Suddenly Hans said: 

“Do you believe there is a God?” 

Ellen looked at him in surprise. “We’ve always been taught 
so,” she said. 

“Oh, yes,” said Hans, “I know, we’ve been taught we’ve got 
to believe in God. But that isn’t what I meant. I meant, do 
you believe in yourself that there is a God? I don’t mean what 
we were taught about the Trinity and the Virgin Mary and Mar¬ 
tin Luther and all that, or what the Catholics believe in and such¬ 
like, but do you believe in yourself, without thinking of what we 
were taught at school or what we are told in church, that there 
is a God?” 

“I think I know what you mean,” said Ellen. “And I think I 
should have believed in a God, even if I’d never heard about him. 
I don’t believe I could have helped it. It comes over me of its 
own accord.” 

“How’s that?” asked Hans. 

Ellen thought to herself awhile, with her eyes on a lady-bird 
that was crawling over her apron. 

“It’s sometimes when I’m sitting by myself and not thinking 
a bit about any of the things I’ve got to do—then I come to feel 
so strange and good” 

“Well, I know you’re that,” said Hans. 

“No, that’s not it,” said Ellen. “There’s different ways of be- 
ing good—I expect I’m good the same way as other people. But 
at times something good seems to come down into me, something 
much better than I am, so good that there’s hardly room for it 
in me, and it makes me think I can never come to any harm, how¬ 
ever much things go against me. And this must come from God, 
and that’s what makes me believe there is a God.” 

Hans sank into deep thought. . . . 

Ellen rose to her feet. “We’d better go home and see if the 
little one is still asleep.” 

“Yes,” said Hans. “Who’s that walking along the road there? 


Peace and Happiness 297 

Why, it’s Peter Murer and Tine! They’re a fine-looking pair.” 

“Yes,” said Ellen; “and they’ve got two children, and they’re 
still going about like an engaged couple.” . . . 

Ellen did not know what truth there was in her words. Tine 
and Peter had just left the Professor. 

For the first six months after the separation their home was 
a gloomy place, full of silent broodings. In gratitude for the 
settlement she had arrived at, Tine dutifully combated all regret¬ 
ful visions. When Dahl’s image arose in her fancy, she went to 
her children, who were always ready to claim her attention and 
were still able to recall her entirely to the present. By degrees 
Dahl vanished altogether into the realm of unreality. She closed 
the door to all her dreams. But in doing so she shut out the half 
of her nature. Life no longer had a future, and she already 
prepared herself for old age. She began to look back upon life. 
Under the same roof with her was the man she had been married 
to, and, now that she was done with her own conflict, she had 
time to think a little of his, and room for a deep gratitude for his 
having set her free. 

He minded his own business, seldom spoke to her, but always 
politely when he did so; in every way he behaved irreproachably 
like a stranger lodging in the house. But she could see that as 
time went on he became more and more of a stranger in his ways. 
Now and then she fell into a reverie, and, on awaking, discovered 
that she had been wondering what Peter could be thinking about 
all the time. 

He had set about a thorough survey of himself, from roof to 
basement, and, as was so often the case in his trade, he had come 
to the conclusion that the material was good enough, but that it 
was out of repair. He went through his relations with Tine from 
the days of their engagement and found the first clear signs of de¬ 
cay —unnoticed at the time. Now and then he took his eyes off 
his own nature and turned them upon his neighbours. And then 
he smiled with melancholy sympathy. He felt at the same time 
nearer to them and farther from them. Without suspecting it, 
he was acquiring such ornaments as culture and refinement. 
Still less did it occur to him that this could be remarked in his 
conduct. 

When Tine looked at him, she felt she was looking into an un¬ 
known world, which was greater than her own, and it aroused 
a longing in her. But it appeared to have no room for her. In 


298 The Philosopher’s Stone 

this new world Peter had forgotten that they had ever been mar¬ 
ried. That it had actually grown out of the ruin of his marriage 
did not occur to her. Least of all, that his view of his former 
boorishness had become so intensified that he could not imagine 
her seeing his better qualities any more than he saw them him¬ 
self. He was bashful in her presence, dropped his eyes on meet¬ 
ing hers; so that he did not see the longing look in them, which, on 
meeting no response, returned to her and grew. Therefore he 
was reduced to speechlessness when at last she could keep silence 
no longer, but asked him almost despairingly: “Don’t you care 
the least bit for me any more, Peter?” 

As he could find no words to answer her at once, she asked 
again: “Would you rather be divorced altogether when the time 
of separation is up?” 

The same afternoon they went to see the Professor and said 
they had agreed to cancel the separation. 

The Professor went to his desk, moved something that chinked 
from the top of the document, took out the latter, and burned it. 

“So that separation’s done with,” he said. 

Then he went back to his desk and took out what had been 
lying above the document. 

“I want you to let me give you a wedding present,” he said. 
“But as I don’t know what you would like, IT1 ask you to buy 
something yourselves.” 

He handed the money to Peter. 

“But there’s no sense in-” Peter began. 

“If I ask you,” interrupted the Professor, “you can’t in de¬ 
cency refuse.” 

“No, of course not,” said Peter, putting the money in his 
pocket. 

The Professor was not inclined to talk, and they on their side 
felt a wish to get away. Peter rose. 

“Well, then I thank you for all the trouble you’ve had and all 
the help you’ve-” 

“Don’t mention it,” said the Professor, with an air of 
superiority and reserve. 

“Good-bye,” they repeated. 

The Professor bowed. 

“Do you think he didn’t like our getting married again?” said 
Tine when they were outside. 



Peace and Happiness 299 

“I don't know," said Peter. “That he wanted to get us out 
of the house was clear enough, but whether it was to growl at us 
or grin at us, I can’t tell." 

There was nothing to laugh at in them, Tine thought. But 
Peter relapsed into silence. He went on so long without saying 
anything that she was again attacked by a jealous fear of his 
brooding. At last she said: “You’re not regretting that he 
burned the document, are you?" 

“No," said Peter, with satisfactory emphasis. “On the other 
hand," he added thoughtfully, “I’d like to have had another look 
at it before it was burnt." 

“Why?" 

“It occurs to me," said Peter, “that he once said something 
about its having to be kept at the lawyer’s. So that was a lie, to 
put it bluntly." 

“The main thing is that it’s burnt," was Tine’s opinion. 

“And the money he gave us for a wedding present," Peter 
went on; “I couldn’t very well count it there and then, but it 
seems to me that it’s about the same amount we paid for the doc¬ 
ument. Wait a bit, I’ve got it loose in my pocket." 

He took it out and counted it. 

“Yes, just look here!’’ he exclaimed, showing her a two-crown 
piece with a hole in it. “It’s my own money! It’s what I paid 
for the separation. The whole thing was a fraud! And that 
document he was in such a hurry to burn—I’ll swear he wrote 
it himself. Mark my words, we’ve never been separated at all." 

They looked at each other and both burst out laughing. 

Peter’s laughter was of short duration. He suddenly remem¬ 
bered he was a man and squared his shoulders. 

“It’s coming it rather strong, all the same, to make fools of 
people like that," he said. “When I think of the day I went to 
repair his hen-house-’’ 

He turned and looked in the direction of the Professor’s house. 
“I should just like to call his attention to one or two things-’’ 

“Have we really not been separated at all, do you mean?" 
asked Tine. 

“Not a bit," said Peter indignantly; “I’m positive of that." 

“Well, but look here, Peter,^1 think that’s just the lovely part 
of it, if we were really married all the time. Both for us and the 
children, Peter. Then there’s nothing to hide." Her deep eyes, 



300 The Philosopher’s Stone 

with their long dark lashes, beamed at him with a joy that de¬ 
cided it all. Before he knew it, he felt the same joy within him¬ 
self and chuckled with laughter. 

“I almost think,” he said, “that while we’re laughing here, that 
rascal’s sitting at home and joining in. And it’s us two we’re all 
three laughing at.” 

“Yes, but if we join in the laugh,” said Tine, “it doesn’t matter 
so much.” 

“Oh, yes, it does,” said Peter; “it matters a great deal, Tine; 
and whether we’ve been separated or not, we’re going to have 
another wedding party. And we’ll invite the parson, who had 
to lecture us—I wonder if that was play-acting, or did the Pro¬ 
fessor make a fool of him too ?—we’ll invite both the parson and 
the Professor. For, after all, I want to say ‘Thank you’ to both 
of them—in jest as well as in earnest.” 

“Do you think they’ll come?” said Tine. 

“The parson and I are good friends,” said Peter in a self- 
evident way which made Tine’s heart swell with pride; “and the 
Professor—well, he’ll come right enough, if only to look at his 
‘wedding present.’ 

“There’s Hans Olsen and Ellen going home. Ah, they're 
happy together, those two.” 

“But no happier than we are,” said Tine. 

“There’s nobody as happy as we’re going to be,” said Peter, 
putting his arm through hers. 

Next Sunday was the wedding party. Half-way through the 
meal Peter proposed the health of the parson and the Professor. 
Tine listened to his speech and thought with pride that, apart 
from the country accent, neither of the two others could have 
spoken more truly, more seriously or more amusingly. 

And how delightful it was to see the three men sitting over 
their coffee, chatting together like old friends. 


LII. “Platonic Love” 


J ENS DAHL was living out in Frederiksberg Alle. He had 
moved in as a stranger, and a stranger he had remained to 
his landlady and all the other lodgers during the two years 
he had lived there. He was studying hard, but not at the Uni¬ 
versity. In spite of the warnings of the Councillor and Miss 
Dale, he had entered the secret Oriental school and had turned 
his back for ever on normal life and its work. Twice it had 
been his lot to lose the one to whom he felt bound with his whole 
being. He had not the power to make Mai Skaarup’s death serve 
for the strengthening of his character and thus keep her always 
within him. All his vitality was concentrated on the question 
whether a world existed in which Mai and Lillebror were still 
living, and on the possibility of establishing connection with them. 
All spiritualist experiments he resolutely swept aside. He had 
more faith in the old Indian methods. These he studied dili¬ 
gently, and the esoteric school gave him instruction in their 
practical performance. 

He was informed that Indian mahatmas were the supreme di¬ 
rectors of the school. It was true he had read the books Barnes 
had given him about the exposure of Madame Blavatsky, but when 
he began to trace results from the training of the school, they in¬ 
spired him with confidence in the theosophical defence of the 
Society’s foundress. 

His sleep had undergone a change. The confused, illogical, 
disconnected dreams had vanished, and instead of them came clear, 
enlightening visions which revealed the meaning of passages in 
the sacred Indian books or the writings of the esoteric school which 
had seemed obscure when he studied them by day. During 
sleep his consciousness seemed clearer, his powers of comprehen¬ 
sion keener, than in a waking state. 

Possibly this was the result of his not being alone at night, 
but under the instruction of someone. In dreams he was always 
far away and knew it. In the same way, before awaking, he al¬ 
ways had a sense that he was to return home. 

301 


302 The Philosopher’s Stone 

It sometimes happened that in his dreams a person told him 
things that would occur “when he had come home.” And, 
strangely enough, they did occur in the course of the day. 

His attention was directed to two things in particular: to 
carrying on the dream to the moment of waking, so that no in¬ 
terval occurred; and to retaining and remembering what hap¬ 
pened at the moment of falling asleep in the evening. For these 
objects he employed the Indian training-exercises with which he 
became acquainted through the Oriental school. 

One day he received notice from the Scandinavian director of 
the school that Sophus Petersen had been accepted on probation, 
with orders to assist him in the translation of some preliminary 
instructions, which were drawn up in English. 

Dahl set out to visit Sophus Petersen. It was something like 
two years since he had seen him last, at the theosophical meeting 
at which Miss Dale had been present. Since then he had avoided 
all intercourse with his fellow-men. 

At Petersen’s door he met Kjellstrom, who had come to get 
Petersen to look at his machine. Mrs. Emilie Petersen received 
them. 

“No,” she replied, with some hesitation, to the question whether 
her husband was at home; “but won’t you come in a minute?” 
She showed them into the sitting-room. “I’ll be back directly,” 
she said; “I only have to give a message.” 

Dahl looked around the neat room, which had a whole history 
to tell of the steadily improving circumstances of the couple and 
of the development of their taste. Each piece of furniture had 
been added as they were able to afford it, and from first to last 
a growing sense of beauty could be traced. 

“No, my husband is not at home,” said Mrs. Petersen on her 
return. “He has moved.” 

They stared at her, bewildered. 

“He has left home,” she said. 

“But what in the world-?” began Kjellstrom. 

“With another woman,” said Mrs. Emilie. 

“Impossible,” gasped Kjellstrom. 

“Her husband is here at this moment,” said Mrs. Emilie. 

“My goodness-” said Kjellstrom. 

“Isn’t your husband coming back?” asked Dahl. 

Mrs. Emilie opened the door of Petersen’s little room and 
pointed. 




“Platonic Love” 


303 


“He’s taken his sofa and his bookshelf with him.” 

Dahl looked in. Yes, the chastity sofa and the books were gone. 
That was all Sophus Petersen had taken from the conjugal abode. 

“You were saying, Mrs. Pettersen,” began Kjellstrom, lapsing 
entirely into Swedish, “that this woman’s husband was here, 
and that your good man-” 

“Mr. Lund has come to inquire about his wife,” said Mrs. 
Ernilie. 

“Indeed?” said Kjellstrom, and Mrs. Ernilie went out. Kjell¬ 
strom turned to Dahl. 

“How much of this do you understand?” 

“Not a word,” said Dahl. 

Mrs. Petersen came back with a well-dressed man, who seemed 
to be well on in the forties. His smart little moustache and his 
rather thin hair were carefully curled. 

“This is Mr. Lund,” said Mrs. Ernilie, “and these two gentle¬ 
men are friends of my husband.” 

“But I don’t understand,” said Kjellstrom. “I thought 
Brother Pettersen was an ascetic-” 

“Ascetic,” said Lund, “when he runs off with my wife!” 

“They insist that it’s Platonic,” said Mrs. Ernilie. 

“Now I begin to understand-” said Kjellstrom. 

“Platonic —my wife!” said Lund. 

“Won’t Mrs. Pettersen be so kind as to explain?” said 
Kjellstrom. 

“It began with Mrs. Lund joining the Theosophical Society, 
and then she came to my husband and asked if he wouldn’t explain 
theosophy to her.” 

“What the devil did she want with that rubbish!” said Lund 
under his breath. 

“My husband’s a good-looking man,” said Mrs. Ernilie tersely. 

Lund hastily twisted his curly moustache. 

“And so Brother Pettersen began to expound the divine 
wisdom?” asked Kjellstrom. 

Mrs. Ernilie nodded. “And then it wasn’t very long before 
they discovered they understood one another so well that they 
must have seen one another in a previous incarnation.” 

“What had they seen each other in ?” asked Lund. 

“They believe they have lived on earth before,” said Mrs. 
Ernilie. 

“They’re mad, in other words,” said Lund. 



304 The Philosopher’s Stone 

“One must not speak scornfully of what one does not under¬ 
stand,” said Kjellstrom. 

“Of course it’s damned nonsense,” said Lund. 

“At any rate, the previous incarnation seems to have had more 
power over your wife than the present one,” retorted Kjellstrom. 

Lund hastily twisted his curly moustache. 

“Where is your husband living?” asked Dahl. 

“21 Fiolstrsede,” said Mrs. Emilie. 

“And your wife?” asked Kjellstrom. 

“At her sister’s in Godthaabsvej,” said Lund. 

“Not together, after all,” said Kjellstrom. 

“Good Lord! that would be a bit too much,” said Lund. 

“Then perhaps it is platonic after all,” said Kjellstrom. 

Lund grunted contemptuously. 

“You don’t know Brother Pettersen,” said Kjellstrom in 
Swedish. 

“I jolly well know my wife,” replied Lund in Danish. 

“Might it not be supposed that she is actually stirred by 
religious feelings?” asked Dahl. 

“No,” said Lund bluntly. 

“Well, then I don’t understand-” said Dahl to himself. 

“My husband’s a good-looking man,” said Mrs. Emilie. 

“That’s not it at all,” said Lund viciously. “She doesn’t care a 
damn for your husband.” 

“Then why does she run away with him?” asked Mrs. Emilie. 

Dahl almost thought she was offended on Petersen’s behalf. 

“Why?” said Lund. “Because she’s romantic. It’s the cursed 
stage that’s ruined her.” 

“Is she an actress?” asked Dahl. 

“In a way,” said Lund sullenly. 

“Pardon—in what way?” asked Kjellstrom. 

“In every way, damn it,” said Lund. “She’s play-acting in 
private life because they won’t have her on the stage.” 

“I think I’ll go and hear Brother Pettersen’s explanation,” said 
Kjellstrom. “You said 21 Fiolstraede, I think? Adieu, dear 
Mrs. Pettersen. Adieu, Mr. Lund, and let us hope the piece in 
which your wife is now appearing may treat of Platonic Love.” 

Dahl went out with him. 

“I am worried,” said Kjellstrom, when they were outside the 
door; “not for that dandy—he can go to the devil, he’s only 
reaping what he has sown. But I’m worried about our friend 


“Platonic Love” 


3«5 

Mrs. Pettersen, who is suffering. A woman despised is a thing 
against nature. Such women seem to shrink up, grow smaller; 
they get sickly to look at and spiteful in their hearts. And I’m 
worried about Brother Pettersen, for if this woman is what her 
husband thinks she is, it’ll go badly with Brother Pettersen, who 
is so simple-minded and naive.” 

He looked at his watch. “I shan’t have time to see him to¬ 
day,” he said. ”1 must go back to my machine.” 

“How is it getting on?” asked Dahl. 

“Splendidly!” said Kjellstrom. “It only wants one wheel. 
Then it will go. You must come and see it some day. I can 
assure you it’s a different thing now from what it was in the 
cigar-box. It’s no longer at home in my flat. It has grown! 
First it outgrew the box, and now it has outgrown my room. 
But the manufacturer has let me put up a shed for it on an empty 
piece of ground by his works. You’ll come and see the machine 
when it starts going, Mr. Dahl.” 

He raised his hat and hurried away to his machine. . . . 

Dahl found Sophus Petersen at home. 

“I expected, however, that you would come,” he said. “You 
know, I’m accepted on probation in the Oriental school, and 
they told me you would help me with the instructions.” 

Dahl looked about the room. The furniture consisted of a 
table, a chair, a wash-stand, a bookshelf and the chastity sofa. 

“Yes, there’s not much here,” said Petersen. “I am, however, 
going to be given curtains,” he added with a smile, like a boy with 
a precious secret that he would be glad to confide, but only after 
it has excited curiosity and wonder. 

As Dahl did not ask, he began to approach the matter himself. 
“You see, I have moved away from home,” he said. They were 
now brothers in the esoteric school and ought to have no secrets 
from each other, so he would tell the whole story. 

Well, the thing was that purity of morals was the first condition 
for becoming a disciple of the mahatmas. And now he had lived 
a life of chastity for a fairly long time. But that kind of thing 
gives rise to irritation between husband and wife. 

What made things worse, however, was his finding a friend of 
the other sex. He and this lady took the same view of every¬ 
thing. They scarcely had to speak a word to understand each 
other completely. 


306 The Philosopher’s Stone 

But this friendship had anything but an ennobling effect upon 
Emilie. Her view of it was to such an extent—well, she was not 
even ashamed, however, to propose that they should “live to¬ 
gether”—he and the lady, that is—“so as to put an end to it.” 

After all, that was very generous of Mrs. Emilie, was Dahl’s 
opinion. 

Sophus Petersen stared at him a long time before he managed 
to attach any meaning to these words. 

“Ah, looked at from that point of view,” he said at last, 
“ye—es, I dare say. But you must, however, consider what kind 
of a relationship we have to deal with.” 

Sophus Petersen was a kindly soul, reluctant to speak ill of 
anyone, but his tone implied that Emilie had been pretty near 
committing the sin against the Holy Ghost in alluding to a 
spiritual, highly developed friendship in that way. 

For he could say from experience that there was no more 
direct way to purity in thought, word and deed than through 
spiritual friendship with a refined womanly soul. “What one 
usually has to resist disappears, however, entirely of its own 
accord.” 

But there was no necessity to explain it in words, when one had 
the proof. Dahl could see her for himself. He turned a photo¬ 
graph that stood on the table and with a careful hand pushed it 
across to Dahl. 

With quiet expectation he watched Dahl as he examined the 
portrait. Anyone could see that it was, however, no ordinary 
woman. 

Dahl was a long time studying her face, but Petersen did not 
mind this. For there was a great deal to take in. 

“Well,” said Sophus Petersen, as Dahl put down the photo¬ 
graph, “what can you see in that face?” 

“She appears to have a great deal of imagination,” Dahl con¬ 
sidered. 

“That is, however, just what she has,” said Petersen. “There 
is not one point in the possibilities of human development at¬ 
tainable by human thought in its present stage which she is unable 
to grasp.” 

“Are you thinking of marrying her?” asked Dahl. 

“We have left such thoughts a long way behind us,” said 
Sophus Petersen, serenely happy. “She knows that I desire 
nothing but self-development, and that I have entered the 


“Platonic Love” 


307 

Oriental school. When she has been long enough in the Theo- 
sophical Society to be admitted to the esoteric school, she will 
enter it herself.—I suppose you’re coming to the funeral to¬ 
morrow ?” 

“What funeral ?” 

“Bjarnoe’s.” 

“The seraph! Is he dead ?” 

Sophus Petersen nodded. “He died of a heart attack last 
Wednesday. He’s to be buried to-morrow at two—if you care to 
come.” 

“I will,” said Dahl. . . . 

Most of the theosophists came to the funeral. Skaarup was 
there too, and Dahl, seeing by his face that he wanted to speak 
to him, hurried away with Sophus Petersen. 

During the funeral oration Petersen had been sitting by a 
young woman, whose face reminded Dahl of Helen Stromstad. 
He assumed that she must be nearly related to the seraph, for her 
pale, handsome face was steeped, as it were, in many days’ 
weeping, its delicate lines were distorted by grief, weariness and 
want of sleep. 

As soon as they had boarded a tram-car he asked whether she 
was the seraph’s sister. 

“No,” said Petersen, “that was Mrs. Spange, divorced. She 
was engaged to Bjarnoe; they were to have been married soon.” 

“Poor thing,” said Dahl; “she seemed to be in despair.” 

“Yes,” replied Petersen, “and a month or two ago she lost her 
little boy, so now she is quite alone. But she is a theosophist, 
however,” he added confidently, “so she will soon get over it.” 

With theosophists, death had evidently lost its character of a 
pitiless sunderer of souls. 


LIII. Warning Visions 

T HE more Dahl concentrated his energy on attempting 
to discover what happened at the moment he fell asleep 
and immediately before he awoke, the more inconstant 
became the barrier between his dream-life and his waking state. 
What he went through in dreams gradually acquired the same 
stamp of reality as his life by day. Moreover, he learned to dis¬ 
tinguish between two kinds of visions: some were evidently 
direct experiences—whether real or imaginary—others were either 
symbolical or dramatic representations of events which had not 
yet taken place, but which very often actually happened after 
the lapse of a short time. His experience forced him to put 
faith in them. 

Thus it was that, one day at the end of August, he went out to 
call on the Councillor. 

He had dreamt the night before that he saw a funeral going 
by; several of his friends were in the procession. He turned to a 
looker-on and asked whose funeral it was. 

“It’s the Councillor’s/’ replied the stranger. 

“But he’s not dead,” Dahl objected. 

“He died on the third of September,” said the stranger. 

“But we’re still in August,” said Dahl; “it’s the twenty-third 
or twenty-fourth.” 

“The Councillor died on the third of September,” the stranger 
insisted. 

A moment later Dahl woke up and convinced himself that it 
really was the twenty-fourth of August. In the afternoon he 
went out to learn whether the Councillor might be ill. 

A maid opened the door and showed him into the little room 
where he had talked to the Councillor before joining the Theo- 
sophical Society. 

The little old man with the broad head was sitting in the same 
chair at the table. He looked doubtfully at Dahl, with a kind of 
strain, as though there was a mist before his eyes. 

“Oh, it’s you,” he said at last. “Glad to see you—What’s 

308 


Warning Visions 309 

that? How am I? I’m no way at all. There’s nothing wrong 
with me, but I’m just quietly falling to pieces. A crack here and a 
crack there. Look!”—he pointed to his lower lip—‘T’ve just 
stuck a piece of stamp-paper over it. That’s what I call my ticket 
for the journey.” He picked up a half-smoked cigar and 
relit it. 

“I can still taste tobacco,” he said, “but I can’t smoke for long 
at a time. Either I get tired of supplying the wind, or else I 
drop off and forget to puff. Well, it’s a saving either way. But 
what about yourself? How are you? You’ve gone in for the 
esoteric school after all, I hear. Have you reached the astral 
plane now, so that you can travel gratis backwards and forwards 
between the world of the living and the world of the dead? Do 
you think you can be there to receive me on the other side one of 
these days? 

“No, none of that!” he interrupted with annoyance, as Dahl 
was beginning a remark that the Councillor might live a long 
while yet. 

He sat in silence for some time with a cross look, puffing at his 
cigar, then came to himself and said: 

“Well, then you haven’t reached your astral consciousness yet, 
so that you can tell me whether there is a life after death or not? 
What?” 

“Don’t you believe in it, sir ?” asked Dahl. 

“Believe?” repeated the Councillor. “Oh, yes, when I was 
well I believed it all right. I’ve been a theosophist for many 
years, you know. But now it often seems to me so unreasonable, 
when you come to think of it. Perhaps that’s because I’m so 
tired that I can’t imagine keeping on any longer. But if there’s 
anything in it, I shall soon find out. And if there isn’t—well, at 
any rate I shan’t feel tired any more.” 

He looked very tired at that moment. Dahl got up. The 
Councillor gave him his hand. 

“Good-bye, my young friend. Take care of yourself, and may 
you live happily. I scarcely think we shall see each other 
again.” . . . 

They did not. The Councillor died on the third of September. 


LIV. His Will Be Done 


W INTER had breathed its chill over the earth. Fields 
and ponds were held in its grip; the snow lay hard as 
ice. 

It had been calm all day, but towards evening the wind came 
in gusts, sharp as a knife and cold as steel, sending men’s fists 
up to nose and ears. At last the wind drove them indoors and 
had the fields and roads to itself. It rose in force and became 
a snow-storm; it howled about roofs and gables, shook the frozen 
tops of naked trees, spread a thick coat of new snow over all 
the fields, and raised great drifts across the road wherever there 
was a gap in the hedge. 

The Professor looked out of his window till the snow was so 
thick that he could see nothing. Then he pulled on a pair of 
long boots, slipped into a fur coat, and went out. The country 
was pathless and strange, as he had never seen it before. He 
took it into his head to go out into the solitude and struggle with 
the blast. 

He fought his way through the storm until he found himself 
on the moor in front of Holger Enke’s cottage. By now it was 
dark and the cottage was scarcely to be distinguished from the 
white ground, but a red glow from the window shone upon the 
snow and showed the way. 

Holger was sitting before the open stove, looking into the fire. 
His shadow stretched across the floor and up the wall to the 
ceiling. He had not heard anyone come in, either because of 
the storm or of his own deep thoughts. On hearing the Pro¬ 
fessor’s “Good evening,” he turned with a look of surprise, stood 
up, and said at last: “In this weather!—Have you walked out 
here in this weather ?” 

“Yes,” said the Professor, “I shall never be too old for boys’ 
tricks.” 

Holger smiled. “You don’t always behave like other folk. 
Won’t you sit down?” 


310 


His Will Be Done 311 

Thanks.” He took off fur cap and coat and looked about 
for something to hang them on. Holger took them. 

“Here’s a nail,” he said, hanging the coat on it, “and there’s 
a chair.” He pointed at the one he had just been sitting on. 

The Professor looked around the room. “Where are you going 
to sit?” he asked. 

“On the bed,” said Holger. 

“You might throw on a couple of logs,” said the Professor as 
he sat down. “I like to hear the fire crackle properly when the 
storm’s howling so confoundedly outside.” 

He looked critically about the room. The only chair was 
the one he was sitting on. Over by the window stood a car¬ 
penter’s bench and a lathe. Along the farther wall stood the 
bed; table there was none. All was clean and tidy, but the 
whitewashed walls had a cold look. 

“Is all your furniture in this room?” he asked. 

“There’s a chair in the kitchen,” said Holger. 

“Bless my soul,” said the Professor, “you have a chair in each 
room!” 

“I don’t want any more,” said Holger. 

“No—you don’t exactly go in for much sociability,” said the 
Professor. 

“No,” said Holger. The Professor stole a glance at him. He 
didn’t seem inclined for humour just then. 

The Professor decided to change his tone. “You’ve been 
getting a good deal of work on the farms, I see,” he began. 

“Yes,” replied Holger, “I’m pretty well off for work. It be¬ 
gan with Hans Olsen coming over here one summer evening 
for a chat.” 

He relapsed into thought for a while, and the Professor left him 
alone. They both sat in silence, the Professor with the fire on 
one side and the lantern on the other, Holger on the edge of the 
bed with the lantern lighting up his face. 

“So it was Hans Olsen who made a beginning,” said the 
Professor. 

“Yes, he came over here, and there was nothing to be seen in 
him but friendliness,” said Holger; “nor in Ellen either, when I 
went over there to work.” 

“There’s more independence about Hans and Ellen than one 
would think,” said the Professor. 

Holger was silent a little while. 


312 The Philosopher’s Stone 

“They let me see their little girl,” he said, and was silent again. 

“She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she?” asked the Professor. 

Holger did not answer at once, and when he spoke it was no 
answer but a continuation of his own train of thought. 

“She wasn’t afraid of me,” he said. “They let me try carrying 
her, too,” he went on. “I almost cried when I had her in my arms. 
I always made so much of the likes of her. She wasn t a bit 
afraid of me. I can’t make it out.” 

“Why not?” asked the Professor. 

“Why, they say the likes of her have a sort of—instinct—for 
which are the good people and which are the wicked,” said Holger. 

“Do you want to make out that you are wicked?” 

Holger hesitated a little before answering. 

“I’ve been thinking a lot these times,” he said. “More than 
I can abide, I’m afraid. I dare say it’d do me good if I could 
talk to you a bit—it’d ease me like—for what I can’t get over is 
that it’s the same thoughts that keep on coming, and I don’t get 
any further with them.” 

He watched the Professor’s face for permission to continue, 
and then went on: “You see, you once put it on me that I was 
to bear my punishment all my life and stay here, where they all 
know who I am and I can read my sentence in everybody’s eyes. 
I could understand that and I thought it was fair and just. You 
got me to believe that I was to do some of it for Hansine’s sake. 
That gave me strength to take upon myself whatever might 
come. I was put to bearing burdens, and I did it with a will.— 
But folks don’t judge me any more. Children don’t run away 
at the sight of me. They stop and talk to me. They look at me 
as if I was a big dog, and think to themselves: ‘He won’t do 
you any harm.’ ” 

“That must be good, I should think,” said the Professor. 

“Then can you explain why it doesn’t make me glad?” 

“No,” said the Professor. 

Holger nodded like a man who knows his proofs are sound. 

“I know I’m not done with my punishment. More than that 
I didn’t know till the other day. I’d been, put to bear a burden, 
and I thought I knew where my burden was to be found, since 
the others took theirs off me. I took myself up to the churchyard, 
over to Hansine’s grave. I haven’t spoken her name before this 
evening. And it doesn’t hurt me to speak it now’. It didn’t hurt 
me, either, to stand by her grave. There was peace over it. 


His Will Be Done 313 

over hers and her parents’.—You asked me once if I remembered 
Hansine’s eyes and Hansine’s dimples. I stood by her grave 
and forced myself to see her. There was no judgment in her 
eyes. However long I looked. No judgment.” 

The Professor looked up. “Might you not suppose that that 
was forgiveness?” 

“Yes. Forgiveness from her. Forgiveness for what I’d done.” 

“Well?” said the Professor. 

“There was peace over the grave,” Holger went on; “but there 
was no peace in me.” 

“You had not forgiven yourself?” 

“I suppose not, for what I’d done. At any rate, not for what 
I didn't do.” 

The Professor looked up at him, unable to understand. 

“Can’t you see?” said Holger. “No, I can’t make it out my¬ 
self either. I’ll never be able to make it out in all eternity.-—I 
might have married her, taken her away.—I can bear being wicked 
and knowing that I’m punished for it. But I can’t put up with 
being wicked and not being punished for it. I can’t put up 
with it. No, I can’t put up with it.” 

The Professor sat staring into the fire. He could not take his 
eyes off it, he was half hypnotized by it. He felt as though a 
mighty hand had seized upon his thoughts and turned them which 
way it pleased. He heard Holger’s voice: “I can’t put up 
with it.” 

“Then die,” he said calmly, and the next moment thought 
absently : “What am I saying to the man!” 

“What’s the use of dying,” said Holger, “if there’s a life after 
death?” 

“The life after death may be a happy one,” said the Professor. 

“Not if there’s memory,” answered Holger. 

“Happy,” he repeated after a while, “happy—I’ve been think¬ 
ing so much these days. More than I’ve really got brains for. 
Happy? Yes, if I’d never been born —that would have been a 
happy thing for my mother, for everybody, and for myself most 
of all. A happy life after death, you say. I’ve no hopes of that; 
it isn’t for those who have a memory like mine. No, if one 
could just be wiped out! Not be anywhere at all! For there 
isn’t anywhere I can endure to be.” 

The Professor looked up from the fire. “What text do you 
remember best from your school-days?” he asked. 


314 The Philosopher’s Stone 

Holger answered mechanically and without hesitation: 

“‘Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee 
from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: 
if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the 
wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the 
sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall 
hold me/—That's a fact,” he added. “There isn’t a place where 
I can hide myself.” 

“From whom?” asked the Professor. 

“From the Judge. From myself and the Judge.” 

“You believe the Judge sees everything and understands every¬ 
thing?” 

“I should say so.” 

“Better than the man who is to be judged?” 

“I should say so.” 

“And his eye is upon you everywhere ?” 

“Yes.” 

“Then you’ve only been moved from a smaller prison into a 
bigger one.” 

Holger looked up at the Professor. The lines of his face 
smoothed themselves out and his features were ready to reflect 
a beneficent thought which was being born in him. The Pro¬ 
fessor went on: 

“You must remain always under the eye of your jailer, and by 
your own will. You took your earthly punishment, and took it 
•willingly. The authorities pardoned you. You took your 
punishment among men and took it willingly. The eyes of men 
absolved you. As you bore your punishment, so must you bear 
your liberty. Whether people condemn or forgive, no longer 
concerns you. Now you are under God’s eye; in what way it 
looks upon you, nobody can know except yourself, who feel it. 
Even you don’t know what it sees in you.” 

“No,” said Holger; “I don’t know either whether he will ever 
set me free.” 

“You are not allowed to desire that. You must not will it.” 

Holger nodded. “I know that. I only will what I have to do.” 

He raised his head and looked the Professor firmly in the face. 
There was a clear serenity in his strength of will. 

“His will be done,” said the Professor quietly. 

“His will be done!” repeated Holger firmly. 

The Professor surveyed the compact force concentrated in 


His Will Be Done 315 

Holger’s big face. He hesitated cautiously for a moment, but 
then said. 

“Even if it is eternal damnation?” 

Holger reeled as if he had been struck with cold steel. His 
big frame tottered for an instant. His face was as white as the 
wall. He pulled himself together. 

“Even—if it is-” 

He dropped as if struck by a mighty hand. 

The Professor bent over him, but saw no sign of life. He 
tore the waistcoat open and put his hand on his heart. It was 
beating. 

He let Holger lie a moment. Then he took both his feet, 
lifted them up, and held them in the air till he saw the blood 
return to his head. When Holger opened his eyes the Professor 
laid his feet on the floor again and was going to help him to the 
bed. 

But Holger got up of his own accord. His face was strangely 
clear; his pupils were unnaturally large; a bottomless depth of 
knowledge seemed to lie behind them. He moved his head in sur¬ 
prise, and his eyes recovered their usual look; their depth and 
clearness vanished. It was as though he were putting, on his 
face again. 

“I must have fainted,” he said. “It was that time—I don’t 
know—there was a clap of thunder—the lightning struck—a 
wall came down and we were all free.” 

“Who were free?” asked the Professor. 

“We were.—Yes, who?—All of us convicts, I suppose.—And 
then there was something after that; I don’t know what it was, 
only that it was good.” 

He turned to the Professor and said calmly: 

“But his will be done—even if it is eternal damnation.” 

The Professor stared speechlessly at this man, who had the 
power himself to will his own eternal damnation, if it was God’s 
will. 

If his brain did not burst, if his heart did not break, he would 
inevitably find out one day that he who is strong enough to go 
willingly to hell, because he knows that is God’s will with him, 
has conquered hell itself and destroyed it. 



LV. Two Worlds 

D AHL suddenly felt that the moment was at hand when, 
with the precision of long habit, his body would be 
rested and capable of receiving impressions. He had 
a familiar dual feeling that he had to hurry, as it was a long 
way home, and that he might be easy, since the return journey 
would take no time, or hardly any. 

He directed his thoughts to his room in Copenhagen and 
moved—at a speed scarcely inferior to that of thought—through 
the air, over land and water, to the house in Frederiksberg Alle. 

As usual, he passed through the wall at the height of the first 
floor and entered the corner of his room. Over in the bed lay 
his body with eyes closed. If only the brain, as so often 
happened, were not full of automatic suggestions! He paused 
for a moment to recall everything he had experienced. He knew 
the importance of getting as much as possible deposited in the 
brain at the very first moment. 

Now. 

He felt as if he were being bound tightly with heavy ropes and 
a lead weight were attached to him. The next moment he opened 
his eyes and sat up in bed. 

He had succeeded! For the first time. He remembered! 
At last his long training had had its effect. His brain was tamed, 
self-hypnotized to lie empty, in expectation, without forming auto¬ 
matic conceptions which prevented him from impressing his out¬ 
side experiences upon it. 

He had come from a meeting with foreign occultists, mostly 

Englishmen and Indians, and they had- 

It failed him. 

His brain, which had been kept by autosuggestion from putting 
together any casual hash of the day’s doings while he was away, 
could not obey him now that he was using it himself. For a 
moment he had been occupied with the difference between his 
sensation in the body and outside it. His thoughts had been 
side-tracked, he was reflecting instead of remembering. He was 

316 



Two Worlds 317 

again inseparably connected with his physical brain and could 
do nothing without it. He knew that he had experienced some¬ 
thing a long way off, and that a moment ago he remembered it all. 
But now the whole thing was gone. All that was left was a 
clear idea of a passage through the air and in through the wall, 
succeeded by a feeling of heaviness. It was even not entirely 
unthinkable now that he had only been dreaming. 

But the idea of floating through the air was so lively that 
he thought he must be able to do it at any time. 

He closed his eyes and banished every other thought. An 
energetic training for several years made this possible. The 
idea of floating lightly and freely was supreme. Then he felt 
a release from something which in a way was himself; it was 
followed by a slight fear, which he suppressed—and the next 
moment he was out in the air again, free and light, on a level 
with the first floor above Frederiksberg Alle. 

Now if he could only have one single experience, easy to 
remember, which would not take long to transfer to his brain! 
Preferably something which he could check in his physical body 
later in the day. 

He was moving over the town in the direction of St. Jorgen’s 
Lake. He recognized it all—even in this state, where he had 
no sense of the solidity of the houses. It was quite natural for 
him to be able to go clean through their walls. But at the same 
time he knew by experience the dreamy aspect this excursion 
would acquire when he was back in his physical body. And un¬ 
fortunately he could not deposit any object in any place, to 
prove to himself later that he had actually been there. 

Where? Ah, there was Gamle Kongevej. And there stood 
No. 23, where Mrs. Sonne used to live. Had she moved, or—— ? 

He went in through the closed front door and walked upstairs, 
well knowing that he need not have done so, but might have 
passed straight in to the fourth floor from outside. 

He entered the hall, the drawing-room. It was the same room 
in which he had so often sat. So Mrs. Sonne was still living 
there. And Katharina? 

He looked about the room. Not much was changed in it. 
The captain’s photograph stood on the writing-table, but the 
cappellano’s was gone. 

But he had so often been in this room that perhaps when he 
came home he would imagine that he had only been dreaming 


318 The Philosopher’s Stone 

about it. What if he went into the rooms he had never seen, 
came back during the forenoon, and recognized them? That 
would be convincing proof—not to others, of course, but to him¬ 
self. . « 

He went out into the hall and in through one of the closed 
doors. He was in the kitchen. He had a good look round. 
Plate-rack there. Salt there; two gas-rings. A coffee-pot stand¬ 
ing on the range. Table there. Two plates with remains of 
food; a coffee-cup half empty. 

He went rapidly through the other rooms. 

In the bedroom Mrs. Sonne lay asleep. She was lying on her 
left side. On the table close to her head stood an alarm-clock. It 
showed twenty minutes to five. 

He looked at Mrs. Sonne. It was at least three years since 
he had last seen her. Her hair had turned quite grey. 

Suddenly she made a movement, as though struggling with 
something. Immediately after, she opened her eyes and gazed 
straight at the spot where he stood. 

She looked surprised, half scared, turned to the clock, and then 
said half aloud: “That was strange.” 

She continued to gaze vacantly in his direction; he had an 
illogical feeling of fear that she might see him, and hurried out. 

A moment later he was in his own room, felt the familiar 
heaviness, opened his eyes, sat up in bed, and remembered it all 
clearly. 

He dared not go to sleep again for fear of forgetting it alto¬ 
gether, or preserving nothing but a dreamy recollection. He 
dressed and went out into the avenue and on, by the roundabout 
way of streets, to 23 Gamle Kongevej. The front door was 
closed. He decided to go up there in the course of the forenoon 
and see whether Mrs. Sonne really was living there still. 

It struck him that he had seen nothing of Katharina. Was 
it perhaps imagination after all ? 

It was hard to have to wait till people got up. By nine o’clock 
he was back at 23 Gamle Kongevej. 

This time he was obliged to use the stairs; it seemed a long 
way up to the fourth floor. 

He had to wait a little while before the door was opened. 
Then Mrs. Sonne appeared. She stared at him with a surprised, 
almost a scared look. 


Two Worlds 319 

“It’s awfully early to call/’ he said apologetically, “but I had 
an irresistible desire to talk to you.” 

“Yes, yes,” she said; “you’re welcome. Come in.” 

They went into the drawing-room, where everything was as it 
had been in the early morning and in old days. The cappellano’s 
portrait was indeed gone. 

“Yes, I’m living alone now,” said Mrs. Sonne, following his 
eyes round the room. “Katharina is married, you know.” 

“Is Katharina married?” He had a feeling that they were 
talking of something far away, unreal, as though Katharina’s 
life and destiny had been something in a novel. 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Sonne. “I thought you knew that.—Well, 
it’s true you haven’t been here since, but I meant from the papers. 
Her name is in them pretty often.” 

A bitter expression formed about her mouth. 

“I never see the papers,” said Dahl. 

“I could almost guess that,” replied Mrs. Sonne; “otherwise 
you must have known that she was married to Mr. Nedergaard.” 

“What—the man with the horses?” 

“Yes, the man she was always riding with. A friend of her 
father’s. Yes, there was a great difference in age; but she would 
do it. It was just after Christian Barnes had gone to America. 
In fact, it was only a week later that she was married.” 

“Then she is well off,” said Dahl. 

Mrs. Sonne shrugged her shoulders wearily. 

“I suppose so. I don’t see much of her. Her ways are not 
mine. I have a feeling that she avoids me because she will not 
be reminded of the time she was living with me. It’s certainly a 
different life she is leading now. Well, it’s mostly from the 
papers that I know about it. I have only to read about first 
nights, the races, fashionable seaside places—everywhere I can 
hear about ‘the beautiful Mrs. Nedergaard’ and her dresses. 
Nedergaard himself I never hear of. 

“But what about you? How have you been all these years?” 

He answered evasively that he had been living a solitary life 
of study. 

“You have grown older,” she said, scanning him. He was 
thin, with deep lines below the mouth, the marks of continued 
strain. His gaze was calm and firm, with a tendency to become 
fixed. “Yes, you have changed a great deal,” she said; “and 


320 The Philosopher’s Stone 

yet—and yet—do you know,” she interrupted herself, “I was 
almost frightened when I saw you standing at the door. No, 
not on account of the change in you, but because I’ve been think¬ 
ing of you all the morning. And then you suddenly appeared.— 
It made me quite superstitious; I thought there was something 
you wanted—something you had to say to me.” 

“I only came to see how you were,” he said. “But, now I’m 
here, I have an odd fancy to be shown over your flat. I can’t 
say why, but I should like to see it tremendously.” 

He looked at her with an apologetic, boyish smile. 

“Now you’re like your old self!” she exclaimed. “Though 
you were generally more serious in those days.—Yes, of course 
you may see the other rooms if you like, but you must excuse 
their being rather untidy. My maid is from the country—she’s 
gone home for her brother’s wedding.” 

She showed him over the flat. Everything was as he had seen 
it earlier in the morning. 

“Ah—I didn’t want to show you that,” said Mrs. Sonne as he 
opened the door of the kitchen. “It doesn’t look nice. I was 
late in getting up this morning. I woke very early—I think 
it was because I was lying on my left side—I always sleep on 
my right. Well, now again it seems so strange that you should 
really be here. For just before I woke I happened to think of 
you so vividly that I almost imagined you were there. I couldn’t 
get rid of the impression and it kept me awake from before five till 
past six. But then I fell asleep and didn’t wake till half past 
eight. That’s why things are in this state. Last night I was too 
tired to wash up.” 

He stood there looking at the two plates with remains of food 
and the half-empty coffee-cup. 


LVI. The Infanticides’ Hell 

** EALITIES?” said the occult teacher. 

* Yes/' replied Dahl. “I am seized at times by a 
XV bewildering fear of losing the power of distinguishing 
between real and unreal. I am terrified at the illusory life of 
others and afraid of becoming—or possibly already being-—as they. 

I have seen an old woman who had no idea that she was dead. 
She was spellbound in an existence which was neither life nor 
death, bewitched by anxiety for her son’s salvation. A simple 
suggestion on my part set her free. She saw her heaven and, I 
suppose, she was taken up into it.” 

“Certainly,” said the occultist. 

“Well, but is that heaven real?” asked Dahl. “Or is it only 
another creation of the fancy?—I have seen a professor sit here 
brooding over hair-splitting problems of philology, exactly as 
he did in the world he had left behind. Is that conceivable, or 
was I mistaken?” 

“If he was only a narrow-minded specialist, it is very con¬ 
ceivable,” answered the occultist. 

“Well, but the books he was reading,” said Dahl, “were they 
real?” 

ceivable,” answered the occultist. 

“I have seen a miser,” Dahl went on. “He sat piling gold 
pieces on top of one another. I couldn’t very well regard them 
as real, but he did so. This sphere is so full of imaginary things 
that I sometimes have to ask myself: Am I, who see the others’ 
"Maya/ am I myself ensnared in a similar one while I believe 
I am being instructed and doing work? Why, even in the day¬ 
time, when I’m living in my body, I am suddenly seized by this 
very doubt in the face of the solid objects of the physical world. 
And then I am overcome by a fear that my powers of distinguish¬ 
ing are not strong enough. I ask myself : What is real and what 
is unreal?” 

“That is because you are not yet free” said the occultist. 
“Everyone who is not free is wrapt in the veil of Maya, of 

321 


322 The Philosopher’s Stone 

illusion, as you said yourself. I am too. I am only a seeker. 
But we are all working with the measure of clarity we have, 
towards a yet greater clarity. The reality of our life, our hell 
and our heaven depends on our soul’s degree of freedom or 
bondage and the consequent degree of clarity. 

“Come and see.” 

They moved away in a direction indicated by the occultist. 
All at once he stopped and pointed forward. 

“Now go on and see for yourself,” he said. 

Dahl looked ahead, but could discover nothing. There were 
not many people in this region of the astral plane. The few 
who were in motion here turned suddenly out of their course at 
a particular place farther on and moved to the left, as though 
to avoid something. Indeed, it appeared that they had no choice. 
They seemed to do it unconsciously, according to a natural 
law, as chaff from a machine is blown to one side by a gust 
of wind. 

“What is it that they are avoiding?” asked Dahl. 

“They don’t know it themselves,” answered the occultist, “but 
they can’t help it. Go on and see. You will be able to enter.” 

Dahl moved hesitatingly on towards something which seemed 
to him to be only empty air. When he reached the place where 
all the rest turned or were thrown aside, he felt no obstacle 
and floated on. 

In an instant—as though he had merely floated over an 
invisible threshold—he saw a living, mobile whole, the details 
of which he did not at first distinguish. 

He was in an enclosed space shaped like a rectangle. Above 
it lay a clammy mist, which seemed in an uncanny way to 
possess personal life. It swayed up and down, up and down, 
in a monotonous, disconsolate rhythm. The whole might be 
compared to a dance expressive of incurable misery. 

On fixing his attention on a particular spot in this horrible, 
ghostlike, undulating mist, he began to distinguish individual 
shapes, and a moment later he saw clearly where he was. 

The mist was composed of pale human forms, mostly women, 
though there were a few men among them. Their ghastly, 
morbid pallor did not belong to death, but to despair, self¬ 
accusation and horror. These unhappy beings all stood with 
their feet on the corpse of a child. A little dead child lay 


The Infanticides’ Hell 323 

under each of them—some were strangled, with visible marks 
of cord or fingers, or with a pillow over the mouth, others 
were cut in pieces, which were constantly joined together and 
cut apart again each time the feet came in contact with the little 
bodies; some lay in water and came up to the surface, breathed 
and lived for an instant, till the feet touched them and they were 
drowned again, and the bright little eyes grew dim. 

The undulating motion he had seen in what he at first took 
for a mist, came from the desperate efforts of these women not 
to tread upon the murdered children. With the energy of de¬ 
spair they raised themselves in the air a second, and life seemed 
to return to the corpse under their feet. The next moment their 
strength gave out and they sank back; the effort had only made it 
worse: they murdered the child once more. 

Close as they were to one another, there was no intercourse 
among them. Each was shrouded in her own pain; it was wrapt 
about her like a blinding garment; they had no sense for anything 
beyond themselves, their children and their deed. Without con¬ 
solation or intermission they repeated their up-and-down move¬ 
ment, swinging slightly backwards and forwards, never resting. 

Dahl floated on over the rectangular space; he wanted to get 
away. But in the middle of one of the longer sides he saw a 
figure he knew, and stopped in horrified amazement. It was “the 
seraph”! 

Bjarnoe sat staring downward, and as Dahl followed the 
direction of his eyes he saw a pavement of concrete; on the con¬ 
crete lay a little boy of about two years with his head smashed 
and the brains protruding. 

All at once the boy got up with a smile and began to climb 
on to the seraph’s knee. The seraph leaned back with an ex¬ 
pression of frenzied terror. The child crept on and tried to put 
his arms round his neck. A look of disgust came over the 
seraph’s face, he struggled to let the little arms embrace him; 
but all at once the disgust in his face changed to hatred and 
rage, he struck the boy under the chin, the child fell backwards 
on to the concrete, his head was crushed, blood and brains were 
scattered on the pavement. The seraph hid his face in his hands 
and trembled. 

“Bjarnoe,” said Dahl, “is it really you!” 

The seraph looked up. “Yes, it is I,” he said. “But you— 


324 The Philosopher’s Stone 

how do you come to be here among us?—Ah,” he said, with 
sudden comprehension, '‘you were an esoteric; you are an oc¬ 
cultist and have come to see.” He collapsed inconsolably. 

“But you?” said Dahl. “You haven’t—you can't have-” 

“Yes,” said the seraph, “I killed him.” 

“Killed a child! But why?” 

“I loved his mother,” said the seraph. “I have loved her 
since the first time I saw her. She was married when scarcely 
more than a child. I knew her the moment I saw her. She 
came towards me like a tone I had always been listening and wait¬ 
ing for. It was not long before we both knew it. But she 
was married. Her husband did not care for her. She was too 
seraphic, he said.” 

“Ah, then she must have been a mate for you,” said Dahl. 

Bjarnoe looked at him inquiringly, and he explained: 

“We used to call you ‘the Seraph/ ” 

“Did you?” said Bjarnoe. “Well, in any case we were suited 
to each other. And her husband did not care for her, but de¬ 
ceived her with women of the coarsest kind. At last she told 
him she wanted a divorce; he could not refuse it, because she 
had proofs of his infidelity, but as he suspected her of loving 
another he had an attack of jealousy and revenged himself by 
making her a mother. If he had ill-used my violin, I should have 
been stricken with grief. But she was more than a violin. I 
went to see her a little while after the child was bom. I am 
generally fond of children, and I looked forward to showing 
her child the affection which I knew it would not receive from 
its father. But it turned out very differently. 

“I don’t know whether it was his hideous ear-splitting shrieks 
—the very tone of inconsiderate egoism—or his ill-natured face, 
or the fact that the child was, as it were, too big for her, just 
like his father, but I felt such a loathing for him that I could 
scarcely go and see her. 

“The hatred I had conceived for him conquered me inch by 
inch. Then she suddenly got her divorce, because the hus¬ 
band took it into his head to marry somebody else. At last she 
was free and we could be married!—But no, we couldn't. That 
is, we might go through the ceremony, of course, but we could 
never be husband and wife. I saw that, but she didn’t know it. 
I saw that the boy was drawing the vitality out of her all the 
time. He was appropriating her. She no longer had a life of 



The Infanticides’ Hell 325 

her own. In that child’s face I could only see an insatiable appe¬ 
tite for food and amusement and an impudent stupidity like his 
father’s. My hatred of him sank deeper and deeper into me 
and seemed to me justified. For it was the best qualities of 
myself and her that were being devoured by this coarse change- 
ling. If he had only been able to feel how I hated him! But he 
always met me with a stupid, impudent confidence and, ever exact¬ 
ing, demanded that I should play with him. 

‘Then it was that it happened. She and I had had five poor 
minutes to ourselves, when the maid came and called her, because 
the boy wouldn’t eat his dinner. She went out to see what was 
wrong with it, and there must have been something to see to, 
as she did not come back. Suddenly I heard the boy in the 
next room. I went in. I was drawn there by my very loath¬ 
ing for him. He had pulled a chair up to the window and was 
sitting on the ledge with his back to the street. He grinned with 
satisfaction when he saw me. I gave him a furious look, hop¬ 
ing that he might have instinct enough to feel that I was an enemy 
and be afraid of me. But he thought I was making faces to 
amuse him, and laughed. Then I went up to him and raised 
my hand as if to strike. He leaned back to avoid the blow; 
an evil look came into the sluggish eyes and the heavy under¬ 
jaw was thrust out defiantly. Then it was that I struck him 
under the chin, struck him as hard as if he had been a grown 
man. 

“I can still feel the triumphant relief with which I saw his 
legs disappear from the window-ledge. The blow made him 
turn a somersault. I went back to the other room and sat down. 

“When she found him on the pavement I carried him up and 
spoke words of comfort to her. I know I was as pale as if I had 
had no blood in me, but I felt no remorse. There were two 
persons in me: one who spoke the comforting words which I 
should have felt if it had been an accident—and which I did 
actually feel; but there was another in me, the satisfied murderer. 
I clearly felt that I was two, and thought: That is why I 
am so pale; there is not blood enough in me for two/ I was 
near going out of my mind, though I felt clear and calm. After¬ 
wards—afterwards I understood, and fear was over me day and 
night. And it didn’t last so very long. They said I died of a 
heart attack. Perhaps I had a heart attack; but I died of the fear 
of death. And of my punishment. 


326 The Philosopher’s Stone 

“Now I know what it is. Every moment he crawls on to my 
knee, smiling in his silly confidence. I struggle to let him do 
it. Sometimes he succeeds in putting his arms round my neck; 
incredibly strong they are, but cold and corpselike. Then it is 
that I hit him under the chin so that he falls on to the concrete. 

“I know this is not ‘real.’ I don’t believe, like the others in 
here, that it really happens. But what good does that do me, 
when this very knowledge prevents my sinking into the others’ 
dull hopelessness and makes me sigh for my liberation? 

“I know where it will come from—from myself. I have 
seen the first sign of it. It came once when I saw him get up 
and throw a hopeless look about him. His mother was not 
here, his father had never cared for him; he stood here, aban¬ 
doned to his murderer. And I was filled with pity for this poor 
child, who could not help having come into the world, any more 
than he could help having received the nature that was his. 
I forgot that it was I who had murdered him, and only felt that 
here in this terrible place I would be both father and mother 
to this abandoned and ill-treated child. Then I took him in my 
arms of my own accord and kissed his cold mouth—and it grew 
warm and soft, and his arm lay gently about my neck. 

“A moment after, I looked at his face, knew him, and struck 
him again. 

“I know that the time will come when I shall look at his face, 
know him, and still keep him in my arms; and when that happens 
I shall be free. 

“If you see him—himself, I mean, for this is not he, but only 
my own hallucination—if you see him outside among the other 
‘dead’ children, then help him, if you can. 

“And if you can do anything for the others in here, do it. 
They are worse off than I am, after all; they do not know that 
what they find here is the consequence of their deed; they believe 
they really do it over again. Perhaps they don’t even know 
that they are dead.” 

The seraph ceased speaking. Dahl felt that the time he was 
permitted to be with him was over. 

He hurried away. On leaving this place of torment, he turned 
and looked for the seraph. The child had got up and reached 
his knee; the seraph’s form was shaken by violent emotion. 
Dahl had not the courage to see the result of poor Bjarnoe’s 
struggle, but hastened away from this hell. 


The Infanticides’ Hell 327 

Outside the occultist met him with the question: “Now what 
is the real life in there?” 

“In there,” said Dahl, “suffering is the reality.” 

“Yes,” said the occultist; “our sorrows and our joys are to us 
the real life—and they it is that overshadow and hide from us 
God’s own reality. He who can pass behind them—or over 
them—he alone knows the real life” 


LVII. Perpetual Motion 

N EXT day Dahl tried to see Sophus Petersen. He wanted 
to question him about Mrs. Spange and try to find out 
whether her little boy had really met his death by 
falling out of window. 

Sophus Petersen was not at home either in the morning or in 
the afternoon, when Dahl called again. Meanwhile it occurred 
to him that he had seen Kjellstrom talking to Mrs. Spange at 
Bjarnoe’s funeral. As it was late in the day* the Swede would 
have left his work; he decided, therefore, to go out to the shed 
where he kept his machine. 

The door of the shed stood open, but he could not see Kjell¬ 
strom, only the machine. The huge monster filled the whole 
space. But as he was going round to examine it more closely, 
he came upon Kjellstrom himself. 

The little thickset man was sitting on a three-legged shoe¬ 
maker’s stool, gazing before him. He was greatly changed. 
There were deep furrows in his mighty forehead, sharp lines ran 
from the corners of the mouth towards the chin, the cheeks were 
fallen in. He looked like a man who never slept and never had 
enough to eat. His thin frame excited pity, but his eyes were 
terrifying. They were far too bright, with a penetrating bright¬ 
ness not seen in the eyes of normal persons. It was a brightness 
that seemed on the point of breaking otf and vanishing in the 
darkness of insanity. 

Dahl put his hand on his shoulder, and Kjellstrom looked up, 
as though he had known he was there the whole time. 

“How’s the machine getting on?” asked Dahl. 

“There it is,” said Kjellstrom. 

Ah, yes, there it was, the great lumbering thing; dull and life¬ 
less it stood still, devouring the whole space. There was a heavy 
silence in the air ; it seemed almost unnatural to speak in there, 
and Dahl had to force himself to say something. 

“When do you think it will go?” he asked. 

Kjellstrom thought a moment. “I can’t say precisely,” he 

328 


Perpetual Motion 329 

said after careful consideration; “but it won’t be long now. 
There’s one wheel wanting. When I find that, it’ll go.” 

“Do you think you will find it?” asked Dahl. 

“I know it,” answered Kjellstrdm calmly. “I’ve seen it—the 
missing wheel.” 

“But if you’ve seen it-” Dahl began, but Kjellstrdm in¬ 

terrupted him: 

“I’ve seen it within me. I am not yet able to see it outside 
of me. But I shall see it.” 

“Do you think so?” 

“I know it.—Don’t imagine that I’m a madman, simply add¬ 
ing one wheel to another and in that way making an everlast¬ 
ing machine which will everlastingly be unfinished. A machine 
for perpetual motion is unthinkable. Science has proved that. 
But what if it can be viewed f I have seen it with the eye of the 
spirit.” 

“Then what does it look like?” asked Dahl. 

“Well, if I could explain it to you in thoughts and words, 
succeeding and supplementing one another—then I should be 
able to finish the machine,” said Kjellstrdm. “But I can tell 
you how I go to work, and when I have seen it. Then perhaps 
you will believe that I am not mad. I become profoundly ab¬ 
sorbed in myself—deeper and deeper, until I come below the 
place where thoughts follow one another consecutively; I continue 
to be absorbed until I reach a point where I know nothing, ex¬ 
cept that all limits have ceased to exist. Then a consciousness 
begins to awaken, and I do not know whether it is mine or that of 
the Universe itself. And then I feel the wonderful mechanism 
of the Universe. And I stay there, waiting till I see the machine. 
I see it finished, complete. And there is no difference between it 
and me. But when I return with it in my soul and come back 
to the place where thoughts follow one after another, like a crowd 
of workmen entering a factory—then the machine falls apart, into 
all its separate pieces. And my thoughts begin to assemble them, 
each thought its part. But when I have to assemble all these parts 
—I find that one wheel has been lost on the way. And I don t 
know whether it is a big one or a little one. Nor do I know 
where it ought to go.” 

“Don’t you think it would be better to give up this machine?” 
Dahl asked cautiously. 

“Can I?” said Kjellstrdm. “Can I cease to be myself? Can 



330 The Philosopher’s Stone 

I speak in another voice than my own? The machine is myself. 
I know I shall succeed. For I have acted as the saints. I 
have sacrificed all. I know I shall succeed.” 

Dahl saw that nothing could save Kjellstrom. The machine 
had swallowed him up. Though he thought it hopeless to ex¬ 
pect a rational answer to an everyday question, he asked him for 
Mrs. Spange’s address. To his surprise Kjellstrom at once 
gave it to him, calmly and soberly. 

“I should like to have a talk with her,” said Dahl. 

“Oh, yes—then you’ve only to go there,” said Kjellstrom. 

“But I don’t know her,” Dahl objected. J 

“You’re a theosophist; that ought to be introduction enough,” 
Kjellstrom considered. 

But Dahl preferred an excuse for calling. Kjellstrom re¬ 
membered a book by Annie Besant, which he had lent to Mrs. 
Spange. “Say that you wanted to borrow it of me and that I 
referred you to her.” 

Dahl thanked him for the suggestion, wondering at Kjellstrom’s 
having such readiness in dealing with the small things of life. 
At the door he turned and asked: 

“Hasn’t she lost a child?” 

“Yes,” said Kjellstrom. “It was a terrible thing. The poor 
little boy fell out of window and was killed on the concrete pave¬ 
ment. She feels it very much—I hardly think she will get over 
it. And perhaps she reproaches herself on account of the open 
window.” . . . 

Dahl found Mrs. Spange at home. She looked very poorly. 
Grief had made ravages on her handsome face and he thought 
she must have consumption. She was more like a shadow than 
a living woman. But when he heard her voice he understood 
why Bjarnoe, in speaking of her husband, had used the words: 
“If he had ill-used my violin, I should have been stricken with 
grief. But she was more than a violin.” 

Bjarnoe’s portrait was on the table. Beside it stood a portrait 
of the child. Dahl examined it carefully, while she was fetching 
the book. 

He knew the face well. The boy had the same smile in the 
photograph as when in Bjarnoe’s hallucination he climbed up 
to put his arms round his neck. The right fist firmly grasped 
a little flute, just as it had so often fastened itself about 
“the seraph’s” fingers. 


LVIII. An Unfortunate Ascetic 

O NE morning Dahl had a letter from the Swedish secre¬ 
tary of the occult school, telling him in so many words 
that Sophus Petersen had left the school. He was 
greatly surprised and decided to go and see Petersen at once and 
find out the reason. 

Petersen was at home; he seemed to have just finished lunch 
and smelled strongly of beer when he opened the door. 

With a very serious look he showed Dahl a chair and seated 
himself on the chastity sofa. 

Dahl looked about the room and found it tidily kept. Petersen 
gazed at him solemnly from the sofa. His face was mournful 
and expectant. It was obvious that he looked for sympathy, 
and Dahl was willing to give it, if only he could find out what 
he was to sympathize about. 

“I’ve had a letter from Sweden,” he began; “from the 
secretary.” 

Sophus Petersen hiccuped. 

“He writes that you’ve left the school.” 

Sophus looked seriously and importantly at Dahl and hiccuped. 

“Did you leave of your own free will?” asked Dahl. “Or-” 

Sophus Petersen hiccuped. 

Dahl stared at him, speechless. He began to understand what 
was the matter with Petersen. The man was drunk! He sat 
there, solemn and mournful, in calm, profound intoxication. It 
was altogether incredible, but he had to believe his eyes. 

“Well, but-” Dahl stammered. 

Petersen nodded. “You believe I’m drunk,” he said. 

“Yes—that is-” 

Sophus Petersen looked at him firmly and long. His coun¬ 
tenance was melancholy, but not entirely free from a trace of 
pride over the shock he had given his friend. 

“So I am, however,” he said. His tone conveyed the signifi¬ 
cance of a man being able to go through such terrible things and 
yet retain his self-possession. 


33i 


332 The Philosopher’s Stone 

“You asked me if I had left the occult school of my own 
accord or from compulsion,” he went on. “I left, however, 
both ways. I left of my own accord because otherwise I’d have 
been compelled, as members of the school mayn’t touch alcohol.” 

"‘But you never cared for it!” Dahl exclaimed, altogether at a 
loss. 

Petersen nodded. “Quite right. I don’t care for it. But 
I’m forced to it. For otherwise I can’t get drunk. Now you 
think I’m mad. I’m not.” 

He looked significantly at Dahl: now it was coming. 

“I am, however, unhappy. Very unhappy.” He pointed to 
Mrs. Lund’s photograph. “If my unhappiness interests you, 
there it is.” 

“Has she—has she disappointed you?” asked Dahl cautiously; 
and Petersen answered in his meditative way: 

“That is, however, the riddle, whether she has disappointed 
me, or I have disappointed her. I have pondered long over this 
riddle, and I believe I have solved it, and that it is I who have 
disappointed her—and for that I am now being punished with 
drunkenness—and other things. One cannot, however, be too 
considerate in dealing with a woman of refinement and spiritual 
interests.” 

“You’re not going to tell me that you were inconsiderate,” said 
Dahl. 

Sophus Petersen’s eyes grew heavy with profundity. “There 
are different ways of being inconsiderate—especially in dealing 
with women,” he said. “Do you care to hear my story?” In 
the midst of his sorrow, which in sober moments was certainly no 
lighter than now, he showed a plentiful share of the drunken 
man’s pride in the exceptionally tragic and complicated events 
of his life. 

“We developed ourselves together,” he said. “We developed 
ourselves pretty intensely, both of us. Development is more per¬ 
fect in the company of a woman, for then you have the emotional 
life as well. But when the emotions take a part, you pretty soon 
come to caresses. Caresses don’t matter either. They must, 
however, be kept within circumscribed limits.” He looked very 
profoundly at Dahl and waited a moment to allow this truth to 
sink well in. “But there is, however, no stable limit,” he con¬ 
tinued with the authority of experience, “unless one is incon¬ 
siderate—from the start. One fine day either the one or the 


An Unfortunate Ascetic 333 

other will overstep all limits to such an extent as to express a 
desire in such a way that the other cannot very well refuse to 
gratify it. 

“But I held fast, however, to my development. The next day, 
however, I found I was left to develop by myself.” 

The honest brown eyes dwelt innocently on Dahl, awaiting 
comprehension of the intoxication which fogged them. 

“She didn’t come any more?” asked Dahl. 

“No,” said Petersen, “and when I asked for her at her sister’s 
they told me she was out, though I’d just seen her go in.—I went 
through a pretty good deal in the days that followed. It takes, 
however, something to make a man with pretty lofty ideals sink 
as deep as I have sunk.” 

“So you have not met her since?” asked Dahl. 

“Yes, I met her one day. She was walking arm-in-arm with 
a gentleman. I walked straight up to them, and she laughed in 
my face.” 

“She never cared for you,” said Dahl. 

Sophus Petersen gave him a sly look. “You think not?” he 
said. “You were, however, not present when she and I were 
alone together discussing theosophy. But you see, I was, and so 
I can understand her. For she laughed, however, in defiance so 
as to hurt me as much as she was hurting herself. And, you see, 
I had wounded her on a pretty sore spot. It was I who drove 
her to it.” 

“Drove her to what?” 

“I know, however, all about their goings-on,” said Petersen. 
The drunken slyness showed again in his face. “You see, I’ve 
spied on them, and I know very well who he is—he’s a lawyer.” 

He nodded triumphantly. Mrs. Lund was not a woman to take 
up with anybody. He was a man of education, a professional man 
with a big practice. 

The slyness died away in tragic brooding. “That same evening, 
however, I myself fell with a kitchen-maid from the tavern 
where I had gone to get drunk.” 

“But why in the world-?” Dahl began. 

“Because I wanted to behave like her,” Petersen explained. 
“It was revenge. But—but she’d only have laughed at me, if 
she’d heard of it. And what’s the use of revenging oneself, so 
long as she doesn’t know of it and it only drags one down? 
That’s why I’m drinking. I had developed myself pretty well 



334 The Philosopher’s Stone 

and I’d got into the Oriental school; I can’t bear to think that 
I’ve fallen so low. That’s why I get drunk. And when I’m 
drunk I answer the advertisements in the agony column from 
ladies who are unhappily married. But I’m only waiting for a 
chance of talking to Mrs. Lund.” 

“What will you gain by that?” asked Dahl. 

"I’ll just let her know that I’ve carried on the same way as 
she has.” 

“What good will that do you?” 

“Then she’ll see, however, that we both feel the same about 
everything, and not only about spiritual things. And then there’s 
no reason why she shouldn’t come back.” 

“Do you intend to go on like this?” 

Petersen was silent a moment. Dahl caught a glimpse of 
an obstinate determination from his sober hours behind the al¬ 
coholic torpor of his face. 

“It won’t last so very long,” said Petersen. “I’m only going 
to wait a little while, till I see whether she’s coming or not. When 
I know for certain, or when I can’t stand it any longer, I shall 
go out to the swing-bridge one evening and jump in. That, 
however, is how my development will end.” 

“Why don’t you go home to your wife ?” said Dahl. 

Petersen looked at him and it took him time to grasp that 
anyone could ask such a question. While he was waiting, his 
intoxication seemed to pass off. When at last he answered, it 
was in the voice of a sober, conscience-stricken man: “I’ve 
wrecked all that. She’s an upright woman. I’m not going to 
hamper her with a man like me. A man that I’d have thrown 
out if he’d come to see me when I was living at home. I wouldn’t, 
however, so much as have let a man like that talk to her.” 

He got up and went to the window, where he stood playing with 
the catch with his back to Dahl. 

“I’ll tell you something, however,” he said in a low voice. “Our 
passions—both the good ones and the bad—they may pull us 
down, they may smash us altogether—but there was something in 
us when first a woman was ready to join her life to ours, and 
that—that, however, nothing can ever alter.—And if we fall 
below that, why, there’s nothing for it but to go—down under and 
out.” 

Dahl went up to him. “If you think like that, you must go 
home straight away.” 


An Unfortunate Ascetic 335 

Sophus Petersen shook his head. “Never!” he said. “Emilie 
and I—that was one definite thing, and if it can’t be the same 
thing any longer, it can’t be anything at all. I once used to think 
I was above her—in development, I mean. I don’t think so 
now. Even if she used to look up to me then. But if a woman 
doesn’t exactly look up to her husband—she mustn’t, however, 
look down on him, for then it’s all over with what has been, 
and in the worst possible way. Especially for her.—Don’t let’s 
talk about that any more. Shall we take a little walk?” 

They walked in silence through the streets of the inner city 
till Petersen stopped at the door of a bar. 

“Well, I suppose you won’t come in here?” he said. 

“Are you going to start drinking again?” asked Dahl. 

“I am, however, obliged to get drunk again as quickly as pos¬ 
sible,” said Petersen. “I have my time-table, you know.” 

He looked at Dahl’s worried face. “Well, that’s how it’s gone 
with me,” he said, and vanished through the door. 

Dahl immediately went to Mrs. Emilie and told her every¬ 
thing. While he was speaking, her face was so tightly closed 
that he could see no sign of what impression Petersen’s life 
made upon his deserted wife. 

When Dahl had finished speaking, she stood up. “You need 
not worry about him,” she said. “I’ll fetch him home.” 

“He won’t come,” said Dahl. “He-” 

Her eyes reduced him to silence. There was in them a wisdom 
before which male sagacity seemed to him mean and pedantic. 
He had not the slightest doubt that she knew what would induce 
Sophus Petersen to return. 

Nevertheless he said: “Remember that he won’t bear your 
looking down on him.” 

“Nobody is going to look down on him,” she said quietly; 
“neither I nor anybody else.” 

Dahl looked at her a moment and then bowed his head in 
reverence, feeling that he was in the presence of the most beauti¬ 
ful, rich and perfect thing on earth. 



LIX. “The Missing Wheel” 


A CHANGE had come over Dahl. He was neglecting his 
psychical training and his recollection of experiences out¬ 
side his body had become fragmentary and more like 
dreams than reality. One day it struck him with a feeling of 
uneasiness that he never saw his occult teacher any more. 
Strange, his meetings with him were always forgotten, though he 
remembered other things from his nightly visits to the spirit- 
world. In one respect, indeed, he seemed to be making progress: 
he was beginning to be a clairvoyant. At the moment of re¬ 
turning to his body he still saw forms and scenes from the spirit- 
world. These visions vanished slowly, as his consciousness began 
to function through his physical senses. His room and its 
furniture closed the door, so to speak, on the spirit-world. He 
decided to consult his teacher about the further development of 
the power of clairvoyance. But then he would have to remember 
what his teacher said. He carefully followed the prescribed 
exercises on going to bed, and left his body with the full as¬ 
surance that next morning he would find his brain empty and 
receptive. 

But when he opened his eyes he was laughing heartily at 
some mad tomfoolery worthy of a circus clown. He saw these 
tricks and thought they were real; but a moment later he knew 
he had been dreaming. 

Dreaming? He had no business to be dreaming; he had to 
remember. He looked about him. He saw the world from which 
he had returned, and he saw by his pillow a little grey goblin 
watching his brain and making merry over the silly fancies he 
had managed to put into it while it lay there ownerless and 
expectant. 

The vision vanished slowly. Dahl saw nothing but the room 
he lay in, but he understood it all. He remembered nothing at 
all of his night’s experiences, knew no more about them than any 
other man who sleeps away the night. Of course what had hap¬ 
pened was that, whereas he had expected to come home to an 

336 


“The Missing Wheel” 337 

empty house where he could deposit all he brought with him, the 
little grey man had waggishly filled it up with his hocus-pocus. 
As Dahl became one with his brain, these ridiculous ideas became 
his, and there was a stopper to all recollection. 

The following evening he tried again to autosuggest his brain 
into unreceptivity towards any impression except those he him¬ 
self brought from the spirit-world. When he awoke he knew 
that he lay at home in his room, he felt his bed underneath him, 
he felt his own body, but he still saw the astral world about 
him. 

He saw it plainly, knew that he had just been moving freely 
in it; but all he had there experienced had vanished, all was for¬ 
gotten for one terrible fact, presumably communicated by his 
teacher—Mai Skaarup was not what he had believed her to be. 
She was a disgraceful hypocrite, who had deceived her parents, 
Miss Dale and him with her angel face. In reality she had 
been a smart young woman who had played the harlot at all 
the summer resorts. 

It was frightful, but he could not doubt it. For his knowl¬ 
edge came from a higher sphere. He looked about him: this 
sphere still surrounded him and was open to his clairvoyant’s 
eyes. 

He gave a start, and a violent indignation seized him. This 
devasting information about Mai Skaarup was not true and did 
not come from his teacher. It was a wicked lie, and its originator 
stood before him: the black figure that “Crooked Susanna” had 
seen in her delirium, and that had persecuted him on that night 
of madness when the numbers were written on the news¬ 
paper. 

He tried to force him away with his will, but the figure gave 
an evil smile and came nearer, scornfully, defiantly. As a drown¬ 
ing man grasps at a plank, Dahl seized upon the mental image of 
the room he lay in, he tried to see it, constructed it in his imagina¬ 
tion : the window over there—the door there—the wardrobe there 
-—and suddenly the whole room was there, as though it had leapt 
out of empty air. The black figure was gone, the hideous idea 
about Mai Skaarup was an evil, meaningless dream. 

But an unsafe feeling stole over him; he felt like a man skat¬ 
ing on ice which will not bear much longer. Why had his teacher 
left him? Why was he suddenly left a prey to these evil in¬ 
fluences? Had he, then, failed? Was he one of the victims? 


338 The Philosopher’s Stone 

But where had he failed? He was not conscious of having done 
wrong. His endeavours had been good. 

He wandered uneasily about the streets the whole forenoon. 
He came right out to the northern suburbs, to the vacant plot 
where Kjellstrom had his shed. 

What had happened to the little brooding Swede ? he wondered. 
Had the machine smashed him, had his thoughts “fallen apart” 
and left him in darkness? With an uncanny feeling that an 
evil power was working for the downfall of Kjellstrom, Sophus 
Petersen and himself, he crossed the yard and entered the shed. 

The machine stood there, huge and lifeless. On his three- 
legged shoemaker’s stool sat Kjellstrom regarding it with a quiet 
smile. His eyes rested on the monster with an expression like 
that of a chess-player who has checkmated his opponent just 
when the latter thought he had won the game. 

“How’s it going with the machine?” asked Dahl. 

Kjellstrom looked up at him, his eyes sparkling with a mix¬ 
ture of acumen and roguery. “It’s going well,” he said. 

“What do you say?” exclaimed Dahl. “Does it go?” 

Kjellstrom smiled calmly. “No. It does not go. It cannot 
go. And it shall never go. That is the secret I have penetrated.” 
He gave a little clucking laugh, when he saw Dahl had now come 
to the conclusion that he had gone out of his mind. 

“I told you once,” he continued, “that the man who wishes 
to create perpetual motion must first behold the wonderful 
mechanism of the Universe. And I said I had beheld it. But 
never completely. There too a wheel was missing, which I could 
not see, though I could feel it. Now I have seen it. I am the 
missing wheel. I am not the artificer, only the wheel—a precious 
small wheel. But I know where it has to go. For the wheel that 
is known as Kjellstrom is a shoemaker. Just a shoemaker, noth¬ 
ing else. But that is a perfect thing, when it’s in its right place. 
Its right place is on a shoemaker’s stool, in the bosom of its 
family. Why, I don’t know, only that that is its place. Now I’m 
leaving my machine and going to my job. I do so because it’s 
mine. And whether I stand or whether I fall doesn’t matter to 
me a curse.” 

He rose and looked Dahl calmly in the face. “Mr. Barnes used 
to say—and it was the truth—that you and I and Bjarnoe were 
searching for the philosopher’s stone. Let me tell you where it 
is to be found. The philosopher’s stone is a milestone by the road- 


“The Missing Wheel” 339 

side. And if you want to know which among all the milestones, 
then it is—the next one. Keep going on: it will invariably be 
the next one. And if you want to know what Nirvana is, it is 
this: smile and do just what you are called upon to do, and 
whether you stand or whether you fall doesn’t concern you a 
curse. 

“Come, let us both betake ourselves to the place which the great 
artificer has appointed.” 


LX. Mad? 


D AHL was compelled to give up the evening exercises 
prescribed by the school. He dared not continue them. 
The feeling of suction which usually preceded the mo¬ 
ment when he rose out of and above his sleeping body, began to 
alarm him, and when once this fear had taken hold of him it 
increased almost to terror; he could not even bear the idea of 
separation from his body. He wished he could fall into un¬ 
conscious sleep like normal people, but unfortunately his clair¬ 
voyant powers were always active at the moment he reached the 
boundary between sleep and waking. Then he saw around him 
the spirit-world into which he knew he was about to glide, and he 
dared not. He was afraid of what might happen to his body 
while he was away from it. The result was restless sleep, in¬ 
terrupted by moments of waking in which he saw forms and 
scenes from the other world. Only after he had constructed 
his room in thought did he succeed in glimpsing or seeing it— 
according as it was night or early morning. 

In the hope of obtaining the healthy sleep which, so to speak, 
begins from below, all the limbs growing heavy and sinking to 
sleep, drawing the brain with them, he spent the whole day walk¬ 
ing about the streets in pursuit of tiredness. 

One morning he had gone far out along the shore road, and 
on the way back he was at last overcome by tiredness. It came 
upon him suddenly with full weight as he was passing the Citadel. 
He dared not take a tram, as he was certain he would fall asleep 
at once, and if he stood still, he could not help sitting down. 
He had to walk home, though Frederiksberg Alle seemed many 
miles away. 

He dragged himself along Bredgade, did not remember how 
he had come through Ostergade, but discovered that he was in 
Amagertorv when an elderly gentleman with a quizzical face 
stopped him and asked the way to the Western Cemetery. 

“Straight on/’ said Dahl, pointing along Vimmelskaftet. “But 
it’s a long way; you’d better take the bus. There’s one just corn- 

340 


Mad? 341 

ing.” He turned and pointed in the other direction. Then he 
noticed that people were standing still round him and the old 
gentleman, and more came up. Another example of the Copen¬ 
hageners’ talent for making a crowd about nothing. What ir¬ 
ritated him was that they all wore the same smile as the old 
gentleman; obviously they were getting some fun out of either 
him or Dahl. It was unpleasant, and he made haste to direct 
the stranger so as to get out of the crush. 

‘‘Take the bus to the Town Hall,” he said; “from there you’ll 
get a tram right out.” 

“Tram?” said the old gentleman with a laugh. “No, look here, 
I haven’t time for that; I’m in a hurry.” 

“Well, then take a taxi,” said Dahl with annoyance. He heard 
people laughing aloud and had a feeling that the stranger was 
making a fool of him. He noticed that he himself was the centre 
of the. crowd. 

“Taxi?” said the old gentleman. “Too slow, my boy!” 

“Then, damn it, you’d better fly,” said Dahl, hoping to turn the 
laugh against the funny old gentleman. He looked at the circle 
of people and smiled at them. 

The laughter certainly grew louder, but nobody seemed to 
take any interest in the old gentleman; every face was turned 
upon himself. Now he had a chance of getting away, there was 
an opening in the crowd, people were being pushed aside; but 
the gap was filled by a policeman, who coolly took Dahl by the 
coat-collar, saying: “You’d better come quietly along with me.” 

“Come with you? Why?” He had a feeling that everybody 
had gone mad. 

“Because you mustn’t stand here making an obstruction. Pass 
along there,” he said to the crowd, who did not obey. 

“Obstruction?” protested Dahl. “It wasn’t I that collected the 
crowd.” 

“Then perhaps it wasn’t you that was talking to yourself and 
pointing and playing the fool?” 

“But, good Lord! if the man asked me the way!” 

“Man? Whatman?” 

“This gentleman here.” He turned round to the waggish old 
gentleman. But there was nobody there. “He’s gone,” he said. 

“Yes, he’s gone right enough,” growled the policeman, “and 
we’ll be going too.” 

He put his arm under Dahl’s and drew him away. Dahl’s 


342 The Philosopher’s Stone 

brain was working feverishly, as though he were up for an exami¬ 
nation and had only five minutes to solve an impossible problem. 
“Where are you taking me ?” he asked. 

“To the station,” said the policeman. 

“The station!—Do you think Fm drunk?” 

“Think? Why, I don’t know when I’ve seen such a tidy 
skinful—not for the time of day.” 

“Wait just a second,” said Dahl, who saw it all now. “Mayn’t 
I walk alongside you, so that it won’t look as if you were run¬ 
ning me in ? I won’t run away.” 

The policeman looked at his pale face and thought for a moment. 
Perhaps the fellow was only ill, he didn’t smell of spirits. “All 
right,” he said, taking away his arm. “But no tricks, mind. If 
you’re not drunk, what are you ? What made you stand 
there talking to yourself about taxis and flying and all that ?” 

“I felt unwell. I was tired. I got dizzy, didn’t know where 
I was. I thought somebody was asking me the way. Fm ill; but 
I haven’t touched spirits for many years. Can’t you let me go 
home ?” 

“What’s your name and address?” asked the policeman, and 
made a note of it. “You’d better drive home,” he said, and called 
up a cab. . . . 

“No, I’m not mad,” thought Dahl as he sat in the cab. “If 
I had been, I shouldn’t have seen that he’d instantly take me for 
a lunatic if I told him the truth—that it was a dead man ask¬ 
ing me the way to the Western Cemetery. And it’s natural 
enough that a spirit should find trams and taxis too slow for 
him. I know something of the speed of their world. But why 
did he ask the way to the cemetery? And why did he smile in 
that quizzical fashion? There’s something behind it. Let’s see. 
Spirits have nothing at all to do with cemeteries or churchyards. 
But . . .” 

As the cab drove on, he saw through it: the evil powers were 
plotting his destruction; the astral substance was plastic, it was 
easy to assume the form of an old gentleman, the question about 
the cemetery was intended to throw him off the scent afterwards, 
when he thought it over, since living people usually look upon 
churchyards as the abode of spirits. 

He was clear and normal enough now. He could argue logi¬ 
cally. He could pay the driver, see that he got the right change, 
and remember to give a tip, in spite of the shock he had had. But 


Mad? 343 

at the same time he could see that there was danger afoot: the 
kind of clairvoyance which one could not control—which, indeed, 
could not be distinguished from ordinary observation—was worse 
than blindness. Better be satisfied with four senses than thus 
be endowed with six. 

There was something wrong. He never saw his teacher now; 
his psychical powers were increasing, but in a strangely uncon¬ 
trollable fashion. He had a helpless feeling, as though sinking 
in a sea of mud. 

If only the policeman had been right—if he had merely been 
drunk! 

Drunk! An idea struck him. The use of alcohol was for¬ 
bidden in the school, because it destroyed the physical organs 
through which the clairvoyant powers operated. He went into 
a wine-room and sat down to drink. When he came out his 
wish was fulfilled: he was as drunk as the policeman could have 
desired. He was drunk, and knew it. Drunk, but not mad. 
On the contrary: from the mouths of children and drunken men 
one learns the truth, and the truth was that he would take his 
name off the esoteric school. 

First of all, he had to sleep. He lay down on his sofa and 
slept the good, heavy sleep of the drunken. 

When he awoke, it was evening. He remembered his decision 
and wrote to the secretary of the esoteric school, resigning his 
membership. But when he had stuck down the envelop, he dared 
not send it; he was afraid of being left friendless in the fight 
with the invisible enemies who were plotting his destruction. He 
wrote another letter, in which he gave an account of his condi¬ 
tion and asked for help. When he had stuck that down, he did 
not know which to send. Perhaps it was best to sleep on it. 

Sleep? He would hardly be able to fall asleep again after his 
long nap. He dreaded a night of struggle against all the things 
he did not want to see. There was nothing for it: he would have 
to get drunk again. He wanted peace; he dared not be sober. 
If he was sober he would go mad; in a state of drunkenness he 
was normal. 

He went to the wine-room, which lay a couple of steps below 
the street-level, took hold of the door-handle, and looked half 
round to see if anybody was watching him. 

“That is, however, how it’s gone with me.” A cold shiver ran 
down his back. Those were Sophus Petersen’s words as he en- 


344 The Philosopher’s Stone 

tered the bar and gave Dahl a look. “I am, however, obliged 
to get drunk again as quickly as possible/’ he had said. 

Dahl hurried back to the street. He dared not go in, the exam¬ 
ple was too dreadful. But what was he to do? He dared not 
stay sober and he dared not get drunk. 

A little man with a springy step crossed to his side of the 
street. Without thinking, Dahl began to follow him. There was 
safety in company, especially if he didn’t have to speak. It was 
pleasant to walk behind this man. What sort of a person could 
he be? He might be an acrobat: there was an elasticity about 
his whole frame, his back seemed wonderfully alive; but other¬ 
wise his figure suggested the open air rather than a circus. He 
couldn’t say why, but it did so. 

The man went along Frederiksberg Alle, in the direction of the 
churchyard. There was nobody about. Over on the other side 
of the avenue a lady and gentleman were walking; that was all. 
Ah, there came three men in the opposite direction. 

Now they stopped and said something to the lady; one of them 
made a grab at her. Her companion stepped forward and spoke 
loudly and threateningly to the fellow. The little man ahead of 
Dahl stopped, looked across, and slowly approached the group. 

The fellow opposite was gesticulating and making excuses, but 
suddenly he caught hold of the gentleman’s coat and pulled him 
towards him; the rough’s head went down and butted his victim, 
who fell to the ground; the lady uttered a loud scream. 

Dahl ran across without any real thought of helping, he could 
do nothing against three roughs, but perhaps they would listen 
to reason. The little man, however, was already in front of the 
lady; the rough had got hold of his coat and was beginning the 
same manoeuvre. Dahl saw the little man’s springy back curve 
slightly and straighten itself with a jerk; the rough went down 
without a sound, his chin had met the sharp, paralysing blow 
of a clenched fist. 

One of his two companions dashed forward, but encountered a 
left-hand blow which caught him on a vital spot and sent him 
backwards; Dahl heard a crack as his neck hit the pavement. 
Meanwhile the third ruffian had got behind the little champion and 
thrown his arms round him. Dahl shouted “Police!”; the little 
man dropped on his right knee with his left leg extended so that 
the foot almost touched Dahl, who saw a hand snatch at the 
rough’s sleeve and just had time to get out of the way before 


Mad? 345 

the man’s clumsy body tripped over the outstretched leg; his 
back came smack on to the pavement, and the little acrobat was 
sitting astride his chest with his hands crossed in a grip of the 
man’s coat-collar, one wrist pressing against his throat. The lady 
was kneeling beside her husband, who lay unconscious with a 
broken nose. A heavy step was heard; a policeman took hold 
of one of the assailants, who was already on his feet again. 

When the policeman had surveyed the situation and been given 
a brief explanation, he said to Dahl: “Will you please fetch a 
taxi while we look after these fellows?” He and the stranger 
each had a good hold of his man; the third rough, whose head had 
struck the pavement so hard, had not yet recovered consciousness. 

Dahl ran down the avenue, and as he did so, his brain 
worked feverishly. There was something wrong with this too. 
The policeman, the roughs, the man with the damaged face, the 
lady and the fight itself were real enough. He could not doubt 
that; besides, he was carrying out the policeman’s order. But 
during the short explanation he had looked at the acrobat’s face, 
and it had smiled at him as though it knew what his thoughts 
were and wanted to tell him they were right. Now he only hoped 
it would not turn out to be all imagination when he came back with 
the cab, like the old gentleman in Amagertorv, who had vanished 
as soon as he wanted to refer to him. 

He came back in a taxi and looked cautiously out. Yes, they 
were all there, indeed two more policemen had arrived. He got 
out and the wounded man and his wife took their places in the 
cab. Two of the policemen secured the prisoners; the third 
said: “I just want you two gentlemen to give me your addresses 
for the report.” Dahl cheerfully gave his name and address, ready 
to laugh aloud in the exultant feeling that there was nothing 
wrong with him. 

But when he heard the stranger’s name he grew stiff and was 
Dn his guard. For the stranger had answered: “Barnes, Savoy 
Hotel.” Whereupon he turned to Dahl with his teasing little 
smile, and when he saw the other’s reserved and hostile face he 
aughed aloud and said to the policeman: “This gentleman and 
[ have met before, but he doesn’t quite believe that it’s me.” 

The policemen went off with their prisoners; Dahl was still 
faring at Barnes in bewilderment, between doubt and hope. “But 
—but is it —really you?” 

“Yes, it is,” said Barnes, “and I don’t wonder you find it hard 


346 The Philosopher’s Stone 

to believe.—Shall we walk back together? Would you care to 
come up to the hotel ? I expect we have a few things to tell each 
other.” 

He took his arm and drew him off. Dahl felt a glad security, 
just as when Barnes, in his first year at the grammar-school, 
had promised to help him with a mathematical problem or a 
Latin exercise. 

“How have you been all these years?” asked Barnes, and Dahl 
replied evasively that he had led a solitary life and only—well, 
studied. “But you,” he said, “how have you got on?” 

“Well,” said Barnes, “at any rate I got what was good for me, 
and that’s the main thing. And latterly I’ve had a good time 
too.—Do you turn in early, or will you come up and jaw a 
little?” 

Dahl had very little thought of turning in early. 


LXI. The Miracle 


W T HAT do you say to a whisky and cigar?” asked 
/ Barnes, when they reached his little room at the 
y y Savoy Hotel. 

Whisky? Yes, Dahl would like something to drink. His feel¬ 
ing of security was growing. Think of being able to drink 
whisky, not simply to get drunk and sleepy, but for the sake of 
cosy conviviality! He felt happy as he watched Barnes puffing at 
a black cigar. Could that tanned, active fellow really be the 
once cadaverous and weakly Christian Barnes? 

“Tell us all about it!” he begged; and Barnes laughed, for 
Dahl was just like a schoolboy who was drinking on the sly 
in a chum’s room and wanted to hear stories. 

“Well,” he said, “as you know, I went with Miss Dale to 
California, to Los Angeles, to go to her school.” 

“Yes, yes,” said Dahl. 

Barnes took a good pull at his whisky. 

“But it wasn’t she who taught me to drink whisky,” he said, 
noticing how Dahl was impressed by the way the drink was dis¬ 
appearing. “I don’t think she would like it exactly. I’m not 
in the habit of taking such big gulps either, but that little dust-up 
in the avenue has made me thirsty.” 

“How is Miss Dale?” asked Dahl. 

“Well, I think,” answered Barnes. “She is dead.” 

“Is she dead?” 

Barnes nodded. “She died last autumn.—Otherwise I should 
scarcely be sitting here.” 

“Would you have stayed at her school ?” 

“Oh, well, I can’t exactly say I’ve been at her school the last 
couple of years—though I was in a way. And in a way I shall 
be for the rest of my life—though not one of the show-pupils.” 
He smiled his old bantering smile. 

“You remember, I went to America to find the philosopher’s 
stone and witness the miracle. The miracle I may well say I 
have witnessed. The stone, on the other hand, I’ve decided to 

347 


348 The Philosopher’s Stone 

leave where it is. I’m not sure it’s worth having. Perhaps the 
real philosophy consists in its being so well hidden. But I can 
tell you about the miracle, if you care to hear it.” 

Dahl was more than anxious to hear. 

“Miss Dale had a school at Los Angeles right enough. She 
called it a school. It might also be called a boarding-house. A 
number of her pupils were set to work in the house. But there 
were certain hours when we all assembled to be instructed by 
her in—in—I think it’s best to call it mental hygiene. That 
expression pretty well covers the collective instruction. Apart 
from that, she took us individually and dealt with each as she 
thought we required. For my part, I was put to cleaning windows 
and washing up the kitchen. 

“You’re surprised? Well, so was I. I washed up and 
wondered and waited; and in the meantime I tried to keep a hold 
on my thoughts, for I found out that she knew them. After I’d 
finished work she used to say to me: ‘To-day you were very 
nearly awake while you were washing up, Mr. Barnes,’ or: ‘You 
were very absent-minded while you were cleaning windows, Mr. 
Barnes.’ " Please note that she was not present while I was 
engaged in these operations. Others of her pupils she treated in 
the same way as Mai Skaarup. They told me they sometimes 
saw the angels. I won’t deny that I thought that was just the 
thing for me. That would be worth going to America for. So 
I cleaned my windows industriously and tried to keep my thoughts 
fixed on them, in the hope of one day being moved up into the 
angel class.” 

He paused for a moment and looked at Dahl with his droll smile. 
“I haven’t seen any angels,” he said. “On the other hand”—he 
laughed heartily—“she let me see a good crowd of lusty devils.” 

He sat with his head on one side and a roguish look in his eye, 
like a man recalling merry times. He took up his glass and 
drank. “Cheer ho, boys!” and he laughed again. 

“Well, we were talking about the school,” he went on. “When 
I had been there some time, I began to hint to her that some of 
the pupils were allowed to become clairvoyants and see angels, 
while others had to be content with looking after the windows. 
‘I educate my pupils according to their character, Mr. Barnes,’ she 
said, ‘and it does you more good to clean windows than to look out 
for angels.’—Yes, it may sound queer, but there’s no doubt she 
gave very serious attention to my character and my whole psyche 


The Miracle 349 

—how serious, I did not know at that time. I shall bless her 
memory to the last hour of my life. I have never met and never 
shall meet anyone like her.” 

He was quite changed and sat for a long time in profound and 
solemn silence. But then the smile came back to his face. 

“I can’t tell you much about her,” he said, “or about what she 
used to say to me when we were alone. It would take a whole 
year, and it would take a whole lifetime to become what she— 
rightly—insisted I should become. But I can tell you about the 
external happenings of my life. One day she came to me and 
said: ‘You have been much more awake lately, Mr. Barnes. 
You wash up excellently and you clean windows quite charmingly. 
It’s time you were moved up into another class/ I was delighted 
—but rather too soon. She took me down into the hall, and there 
I saw the most singular apparition I’d ever set eyes on: a huge 
fellow with shoulders like a doorway, a hat like a tent, and a face 
like a hawk. His feet were encased in a terrific pair of boots 
with impossible high heels and long spurs; a revolver as big as a 
small cannon dangled at his hip; he wore a red shirt and had a 
blue handkerchief tied round his neck. He looked as if he’d 
come straight out of the worst kind of Wild West story. ‘See 
here, Bill,’ said Miss Dale, ‘this is the man you’re to take with 
you.’ ‘Sure,’ said the monster. I was rather curious to find out 
whether this creature with the tent and the gun was one of my 
new class-mates or possibly the teacher himself. Well, now you’ll 
think I’m lying, but, if so, you’ll have to disbelieve what happened 
this evening too. I asked Miss Dale where I was going, and she 
told me she had a friend who was foreman on a ranch in Montana. 
I was to go there for a while. You may be surprised at my 
obeying her blindly, but if you’d been there when she talked to me 
alone, you wouldn’t wonder any longer. You would have obeyed 
her just as blindly—and you wouldn’t have regretted it. 

“I went with Bill to Montana. Luckily most of the journey 
was by rail. When we r d gone a good way I asked him his name. 
‘I’m Sinewy Bill,’ he said. I preserved a respectful silence, 
guessing that this name was well known in the circles he 
frequented. And, by the Lord, it was known, both for good and 
evil. I may as well tell you at once that the man’s name was 
William Stone, but nobody in the whole cattle country ever 
thought of calling him anything but Sinewy Bill. He was a cow¬ 
boy on the ranch in Montana. He had landed there after a wild 


350 The Philosopher’s Stone 

life with many a narrow escape from jail. Once, I believe, he 
had been inside for a time. After running riot from Texas 
through Arizona and Wyoming right up to Montana, he came 
riding up to the ranch one day, asked for a job, and got it. The 
foreman knew Sinewy Bill, but he was a bold man and wanted a 
fellow who could break horses. There wasn’t anything wrong 
with Bill either, when he was sober, but whisky made him mad. 

“Miss Dale used sometimes to stay a week or so at the ranch; 
it reminded her of her childhood on the prairie. One time she 
arrived just as Bill had one of his fits. He sat in the blacksmith’s 
shop with a bottle of whisky, a revolver and a pile of cartridges, 
singing and cursing and shooting at everything that came near. 
The foreman was wild. He didn’t want to lose his best hand, 
but there had to be an end of it. He wanted to use the black¬ 
smith’s shop, but Bill fired whenever anybody came near, and Bill 
was a damned good shot. 

“Then it was that Miss Dale went to see him. Bill didn’t shoot. 
What happened in the blacksmith’s shop nobody knows but she 
and Bill. But since that day Bill has obeyed her like a little dog. 
In fact, he’s one of her most faithful pupils. I talked to him 
about her while we were in the train. ‘She’s a great woman,’ he 
said, ‘the strongest I ever saw. I can break wild horses, but she 
can break wild men.’ Yes, Bill was tame now and she was proud 
of him. Well, we travelled on and on—it’s a long way from Los 
Angeles up to Montana—but at last Bill said: ‘There, that 
journey’s done.’ That was his way of looking at it; mine was 
going to be something different. He dragged me off to a couple 
of horses, was astride of one of them in a second, and invited me 
to climb up on to the other. ‘I can’t ride,’ I said. He glared at 
me with no more comprehension than if I’d said I hadn’t yet 
learnt to walk. ‘Can’t ride?’ he said. ‘Well, as far as I can see, 
you ain’t no inv’lid, you’ve got two legs and a behind.’ ‘I dare 
say,’ said I, ‘but the last thing you mention has never sat on a 
horse and certainly won’t stay there very long if the beast starts 
going.’ Bill was a resolute man; before I knew what was happen¬ 
ing I found myself lashed firmly in the saddle and noticed that the 
ground was running away under me at a furious pace, while trees 
and houses were jumping up and down. I can’t describe that ride 
to the ranch. In the first place, there are no words strong enough 
for my sufferings, and, in the second, I was unconscious most of 
the time. When I woke up I was lying in bed, wondering why 


The Miracle 351 

they had put a saddle between my legs. There wasn't any saddle: 
I found that out on further examination, but my legs wouldn’t 
believe it; it was impossible for me to bring them together. 
There wasn’t a scrap of my back that didn’t ache. 

“The foreman came in and introduced himself. He had a 
letter in his hand and said: ‘Miss Dale writes that you’re coming 
as a visitor. You’re welcome. I hope you’ll like your stay; but 
as it says here that Bill’s to look after you, I guess you ain’t goin’ 
to get no holiday out here.’ He guessed right. Bill spent his 
spare time in educating me as a cowboy! I believe his idea was 
that he was dealing very gently with me. He had never had to 
work with such wretched material in a living human being. He 
declared that the only possible explanation of my flabbiness was 
that I was really born dead and didn’t know it. I couldn’t get 
away, partly because I was always too tired, and partly because 
Bill would have caught me at once. He had me in his charge, and 
he was training me as carefully as if I had been a performing 
dog. Later on I heard that Miss Dale had given him orders to 
be the death of me, slowly but surely.” 

Barnes paused and looked at Dahl, who exclaimed in astonish¬ 
ment: “Miss Dale!” 

Barnes nodded seriously. “Miss Dale, yes. And Bill carried 
out her orders to the letter.” 

“Well, but—you’re still alive,” Dahl stammered. 

“I arose from the dead,” explained Barnes with a laugh. 

“You see,” he continued, “Miss Dale had said to me in Los 
Angeles: ‘There are two things fundamentally wrong with you, 
Mr. Barnes, and you can’t get rid of them without help. One is 
a rottenness in your spiritual life which was grafted in you in 
childhood and has grown up with you. The other is that you can’t 
keep within your own limits. You’re always prying into other 
people’s mentality, and it weakens you more than you’re aware of. 
But it’s become a habit with you and you can’t get rid of it any 
more than you could control a St. Vitus’s dance.’ ‘That’s why I 
came out here with you,’ I said. ‘I’ll put you right,’ she said; 
‘I’ll give you a new and better consciousness; but first we must 
get rid of the old one.’ 

“That was what she used Bill for. He put me through it on 
horseback, with lassoing, rounding-up and all the rest of it, till 
I dropped like a dead man; and next morning he pulled me out 
again, still full of sleep and only half conscious. I became a 


352 The Philosopher’s Stone 

living automaton. There wasn’t a thought in my head but tired¬ 
ness ; my aching limbs used up all the vitality there was in me. I 
was just sufficiently awake to fall asleep the moment he left me in 
peace, no more. I worked, ate and slept, but really didn’t know 
anything about it all. I may say that I was unconscious for 
several months. My body was alive, but / was dead. I don’t 
even know whether I remembered my name. Anyhow, I was too 
tired to say it. My goodness, yes, if anyone had asked my name 
I’d have said: ‘The Kid.’ That’s what the boys called me. 
Christian Barnes was dead. Bill had been the death of him. 

“But one day I discovered to my surprise, just as I was putting 
my foot in the stirrup, that I knew what I was doing. I wanted 
to get on the back of that crock—the quietest in the whole outfit, 
given to me because I was the worst horseman. I was thinking! 
I looked about me when I was in the saddle, and I actually asked 
Bill where we were going and what we had to do there. Two 
whole thoughts in connection! It was a great day; I was 
beginning to be as clever as a little child. Every day after that, 
I could feel my consciousness growing bit by bit. You don’t 
know what a glorious feeling it was. With exercise, food and 
sleep my physique had grown so strong that it had got a little 
surplus, which was at once available for mental life—first applied 
to the simplest things, but gradually extended until one fine day 
Christian Barnes arose from the dead as—yes, I can say so—a 
new and better man. I told Miss Dale this one day, when I was 
on a holiday at Los Angeles, and she answered: ‘Yes, Mr. 
Barnes, if you’d been taken in hand in time or had had more 
strength of will, you wouldn’t have needed such rough remedies. 
But when I met you, your soul was not healthy. It was like a 
house with damp rot. The only thing to do was to pull up all the 
boards and lay new floors. Now you’re healthy, but you’d better 
stay out there awhile yet, till you get a “firm seat.” ’ 

“Well, I stayed up in Montana. I began seriously to take a 
share in the work. Yes, for the last couple of years I’ve honestly 
earned my money on the ranch. But I still had a pretty tough 
time to go through. One day Bill came to me and said: ‘Have 
you noticed how all the boys laugh at you ?’ I thought a moment 
and said: ‘Why, yes, so they do.’ You see, I hadn’t thought 
about it, but I was sort of brought up with it; it seemed to belong 
to the nature of things. ‘Well,’ said Bill, ‘I guess you can see 
you’ve been a regular circus for them all this time and they can’t 


The Miracle 353 

forget it. But you’ve got to cure them.’ ‘How?’ I asked. 
‘You’ll have to whip one or two of them,’ he said. ‘Impossible!’ 
said I. ‘Jack: and Archie will be the easiest/ said Bill reflectively. 
‘They could kill me with their bare fists,’ said I. Bill looked at 
me critically. ‘You told me Denmark was a small country,’ he 
said; ‘and, by the look of you, it must be so almighty small that 
there ain’t room for a man to grow up. But, you see, there’s one 
thing needful in this world we live in, and that’s punching. You 
can’t do without that, whether you give it yourself or somebody 
gives it to you. You’ve got to punch Jack and Archie. I’ll learn 
you something that’s good for a little man to know.’ So Bill 
taught me what he had no use for himself but had picked up, all 
the same, on his sinful wanderings about the Western States. He 
pretty nearly knocked the life out of me once more, but he taught 
me boxing and the most villainous Japanese jiu-jitsu tricks. At 
last he said: ‘Next time Jack or Archie gives you any sauce, 
you’ll give them one on the jaw. The others you’d better leave 
alone at present.’ ‘I’m not vindictive, Bill,’ I said meekly; ‘I 
don’t mind Jack or Archie having a bit of fun; I prefer to let 
them laugh in peace.’ ‘Well, the first time I see that, I’ll half kill 
you,’ said Bill, ‘and the next time the same, and the next, and so 
on, till the day of judgment.’ That settled it. The same day I 
gave Jack one on the jaw; he went for me, I practised my tricks, 
and in my zeal to please Bill I chanced to break Jack’s arm with 
a Japanese grip. ‘What the hell’s this?’ the others cried. ‘Well, 
the Kid’s grown up/ said Bill. They admitted it, and after that 
we were good friends. Jack’s a good boy and doesn’t bear any 
grudge. 

“A few days after that, Bill came and said he’d got a week off 
and proposed to take me for a trip to Yellow Creek. Yellow 
Creek is a little ‘town’—a lovely little town, as you can guess. I 
asked what he wanted in that hole of a place. ‘You want train¬ 
ing,’ said he, ‘and we.can’t let you break the arms of the boys on 
the ranch. But there’s a few in Yellow Creek that you can 
practise on and it’ll do them good. Only look out they don’t 
shoot. Well, I’m with you anyway.’ I privately promised my¬ 
self to be as gentle as a lamb in Yellow Creek, but whatever I 
did or did not do, I was everlastingly in hot water and had one fight 
after another. I believe Bill, who never touched whisky himself, 
took care that I always had a suitable quantity of alcohol on board. 
I fought every blessed day and at last I came to like it. I was 


354 The Philosopher’s Stone 

almost sorry when Bill said our holiday was up. He examined 
my left eye, which was bunged up, and my inordinately swollen 
mouth. ‘You don’t look handsome, Kid,’ he said, ‘but you shaped 
quite nicely.’ I was fearfully proud and drank a whisky. As we 
rode home I was in high spirits, but Bill was sunk in thought. 
‘What’d you do if you came up against a man who took to gun¬ 
play?’ he asked. ‘Aim a bit lower than this,’ I said, and sent a 
shot through Bill’s hat. I had a gun dangling at my own hip now, 
but I can’t have been quite sober when I took that liberty with 
Bill’s hat. ‘Devil take you, boy!’ he shouted. ‘You don’t want 
a nurse any longer!’ 

“When we could get away from the ranch, Bill and I always 
went to Los Angeles, while the other boys got rid of their hard- 
earned money as foolishly as they could. On one of these visits 
Miss Dale said to Bill: ‘He’s all right. Now you must teach 
him to be still.’ ‘I Can do a thing,’ said Bill, ‘but I ain’t no good 
at explanations. You must learn him the preliminaries yourself.’ 
So Miss Dale took me into my old room and there we sat for 
three-quarters of an hour without saying a word. I almost 
wished I was dead while we were sitting there, and yet that was 
the first time I felt a serious desire to live. Once, when I was a 
boy, I thought I saw into heaven—that afternoon I thought I was 
there. She gave me an explanation of what happened, but you 
can hear that another time. I can’t better express what I felt 
that afternoon than by quoting the hymn: ‘God’s blessing from 
above poured down upon His congregation.’ 

“When I came out Bill looked at me closely—he was then quite 
different from the Bill I knew—and said seriously: ‘Well, Kid, 
if the day should come when you can do this yourself, you’ll 
be at peace then and for ever.’ No, I didn’t recognize Bill at all 
that day; I had only seen in him the fire-eater that Miss Dale 
had ‘broken.’ But after that I came upon him at moments when 
he was what Miss Dale called stilt. When his work permitted he 
was ‘still’ at sunrise, at midday and at sunset; and occasionally 
at other times, when he was alone. His wild nature was com¬ 
pletely mastered by the stillness, by the still devotion. 

“For my own part, I too have come to know this devotion. 
In it I have found the central point of my own being. 

“I believe I once told you in one of our undergraduate confabs 
that I was hunting for the religious feeling. I was looking for 
it with my head, I tried to study it in other people. Now I go 


The Miracle 355 

about it another way. I have found it in my own heart, and my 
life’s happiness, my spiritual harmony, is closely linked with its 
growth. But in order to grow, it must have nourishment, and you 
will probably be surprised when I tell you that I find that nourish¬ 
ment in my father’s old church.” 

“Yes,” said Dahl; “I never imagined that you would end as 
a Christian.” 

“I don’t know whether there is any community that would 
acknowledge me as a Christian,” said Barnes; “and that doesn’t 
interest me either. For that matter, I don’t see that any particular 
clique has the right to decide whether Christ would deign to 
accept me as one of his own. All I can say on the subject is 
that the old hymns and the Bible sayings which as a child I had 
to learn by heart, much against my will, now awaken a deep 
feeling of devotion in me. . . . 

“No, I don’t suppose you can recognize me; you never ex¬ 
pected to find me a cross between a prize-fighter and a lay 
preacher! But in one thing you can see I haven’t changed: I’m 
just as much of a chatterbox as I was in the old days.” 

“Are you going to stay at home now?” asked Dahl. 

“Ah—yes,” said Barnes with a sigh. “I shall stay at home. 
I thought I’d only come over on a short visit. But—now I 
have met old Pastor Barnes and seen his delight over the prodigal 
son. I won’t deprive him of that. I shall take my degree. I 
shall have to work at full speed so as to manage the big ‘round-up’ 
in a year and a half from now.” 

“By ‘round-up,’ I suppose, you mean examination?” said Dahl. 

“Yes,” replied Barnes; “and then I shall be a schoolmaster 
after all. The idea appeals to me—only I wish one could teach 
boys in the open air! It’ll be hard to get used to a frowsty 
schoolroom. But I’m looking forward to making boys into 
boys.—When will you be up?” 

“I generally get up about eight,” said Dahl. 

“I meant for your degree,” said Barnes. 

Dahl thought a moment. '‘Oh, my degree—well, I don’t know. 
To tell you the truth, I haven’t been reading much for that.” 

“I could pretty well see that,” said Barnes. “I guess you 
want a pacer. After the vacation we’ll both set to work and 
see which will be ready first.—But now it’s getting late and we 
ought to go to bed. I’ll come round and see you in a day or two 
and then it’ll be your turn to give an account of yourself.” 


LXII. Maya 

I T had been a comfort to Dahl to hear Barnes’s story, but when 
the question of his degree came up he was seized with a feel¬ 
ing of impotence. He knew he would never take his degree. 
He was incapable of applying his attention and his energy in that 
direction. A dull hopelessness weighed upon him, though he 
tried to console himself with the thought that it was only the 
result of tiredness and the lateness of the hour; when once he 
had slept everything would look different. 

And indeed his first thought next morning was that it would 
be all right. Barnes had push; he would certainly take the part 
of tutor and force Dahl to do some work. It would amuse him 
to “rush Dahl through,” he would enjoy playing the part of 
Bill. It all looked encouraging as he lay in bed. 

But when he was up he felt he was not going to let Barnes 
order him about. He would manage it by himself. With this 
idea in his head, he stood dreaming for half an hour, tooth-brush 
in hand. On discovering this, he was once more certain that he 
would never so much as start reading for his degree. A dull 
despair smothered all his initiative; a dark dread of the future 
hid every alternative. 

He went out with the intention of confiding in Barnes and pos¬ 
sibly getting shaken up and supported by his powerful hand. 
But on reaching the Savoy Hotel, he walked past, feeling ashamed 
of himself; he could not bear to expose his imbecility to Barnes. 

He walked on aimlessly; when at last he looked about him, 
he was out on the ramparts of Christianshavn. He felt he was 
tired. There was a tree down by the edge of the moat which had 
a homelike look. A big branch hung over the water, another lay 
a little farther back and higher up; it was a regular bench with 
a back to it. He went and sat down; the lower branch was 
just high enough to keep his feet out of the water. He sat just 
as comfortably as in his old “chair” in the hazel hedge at home. 
Even his peep-hole to the world was there—a round gap in the 
foliage in front of him. 


356 


Maya 357 

If only he had never grown any older! Or if he could begin 
there again and live his life afresh! He could not understand what 
had made him so incapable in the things of life. He had been 
talented enough, he thought, and people had always been willing 
to meet him half-way. And his aims had always been good and 
lofty. How was it he had ended in abandonment and helpless¬ 
ness? Whence came this feeling of impotence in practical mat¬ 
ters? How desperately vacant his brain was! 

He laid his forehead against the upper branch and wished 
he could sleep into oblivion, forget all that concerned himself. 

All at once he sat up and felt he was more awake than he 
had been for many years. He did not understand it at first, 
and when he did understand he scarcely ventured to believe it— 
he was once more in “the open,” where time does not exist, 
where nothing is either far or near, where the heart catches and 
speaks the wordless language of heaven. Through this language, 
from which seers derive their wisdom, in which mystics speak 
with God, he was given his last profound knowledge of himself. 
He saw the wavering of his weak character, when after his 
first fall he had neither had courage to persist in sin nor strength 
to turn away from it. He saw how, after experiencing the 
divine love and seeing it expressed in his own countenance, he 
had appropriated it as a personal accomplishment; he saw him¬ 
self using others as instruments of spiritual enjoyment, without 
a thought of what it might cost them. Judgment upon him lay 
within himself, and the judgment was that he had thrown away 
the gift of life by transforming the grace of God into enjoyment 
and seeking spiritual growth and development for the sake of 
the delights with which it was attended. 

He knew his fate. He was in the open, that is, in eternity. 
He who has lived in eternity cannot be eternally lost. He was 
there as a child, and beyond that he would never go. Hitherto he 
had wasted his life as a man, and not only that, but had spread 
sorrow and injury about him; and the rest of his life was forfeit, 
destroyed by his own actions. Like a stone that was tied to him, 
they would drag him to the bottom. The years that might have 
given him a chance of recovering himself and going on, taught 
by his errors, would never belong to his life. 

Then eternity closed again, and he knew it would nevermore 
be open to him, while he was in this life. But when he was 
back on the top of the rampart, he thought that even if his life 


358 The Philosopher’s Stone 

was to be grey and almost intolerable, he might nevertheless go 
through it as a useful worker; and he went home to make a 
start at once. 

At home, face to face with the text-books that had been 
neglected so long, he felt with dismay that he would never get 
beyond the intention; the life of resolution and action was closed 
to him. The active part of his being had died of atrophy. 

He sat on the sofa and opened a note-book that had never been 
used. He could not bear to see all the blank pages; it was 
absolutely necessary that something should be written on them. 

He took his pen and wrote two sentences, slowly and in a 
copy-book hand. He sat gazing at them till his feeling of 
impotence became one of weariness. Then he lay down and 
slept. 

When he awoke he looked at the note-book, tore out the leaf 
with the two sentences, folded it carefully, and placed it in his 
pocket-book. He was so loath to believe in what he had written 
before he fell asleep. 

He went back to the ramparts in the childish hope of once 
more receiving enlightenment and help in the same place. He 
no longer felt like a grown man. He had stopped at the point 
where he had last seen into “the open,” during his last year at 
school. He had been put back to that point, argued and acted 
as he would have done then. He had a feeling that the grown-up 
part of him was already dead. 

He went down and sat on the branch again, looked out again 
upon the world through the peep-hole among the leaves. It was 
so hopeless to think; he was a helpless boy. His thoughts were 
relaxed; he leaned back against the branch and floated off, as 
he had so often done before, into the semiconscious state in 
which elements of dreaming and elements of reality combined, 
now into wisdom, now into folly, occasionally into both. 

The branches became the hazel hedge, the water became the 
road, the rampart the garden, where Kristen the sexton was 
digging. He had just given him back his pipe after playing 
with the lid, looking at the black hell on the under side, and the 
green earth of the hazel-trees and the grass, and making the sky 
grow blue with the love that came from God, who could not be 
seen; but when he came and showed himself, you could see 
nothing but him. 

A smile of relief dawned in his face. Thank God, he had 


Maya 359 

only been dreaming. The dream of course was due to the lid of 
Kristen’s pipe. He had been playing with it, and then he had 
fallen asleep. He had dreamt that he was grown up, that he 
had seen into heaven and felt God’s marvellous love, had wan¬ 
dered about on God’s green earth, and made himself ill from 
eating its ripe and unripe fruits, had descended into gloomy, 
stinking hell, which had poisoned his whole being. Thank God, 
it was only a dream; a warning dream it should be. When he 
grew up, some day, he would take care to remember it, so that 
it might disclose to him life’s artfully concealed snares. He had 
been given gifts to lead a better life than most. 

Cheerfully he looked out through his peep-hole into the world 
of the living. The field across the road was green with lush 
grass. Within it stood a woman in a pink garment, beckoning 
to him. 

He smiled a knowing, mysterious smile. There was every¬ 
thing in her, all that which never grows old, that which he had 
seen in Annine Clausen and Kirsten Per Smeds the day when 
he came round to the side of them that was turned towards the 
young Per Smeds and him who had been the father of Niels 
Peter. 

It was all in her, her walk was a dance, her eyes drew his 
gaze and in them he met his own enraptured face. Her smile 
turned his head; she beckoned and he replied: 

“At last you have come. I have been here every day watching 
for you. Tell me your name.” 

She smiled till he grew dizzy, as she answered: 

“My name is Maya.” 

“Maya,” he repeated; “Maya—I thought you were called 
Tine. But the name is nothing. I’m coming to you now.” 

He stood up and stepped out into the road. 

The water closed over him. 


LXIII. The Crossways 

T HE afternoon shadows were beginning to lengthen. 

The Professor was leaning over his garden-gate smok¬ 
ing. Suddenly he heard the quick trip-trap, trip-trap 
of a pair of wooden shoes and the puffing and blowing of a 
pair of overtaxed lungs. 

It was Annine Clausen, incapable of seeing or hearing, since 
she was literally at her last gasp, but she had to go on, if it 
took a miracle to do it. 

“Whoa!” shouted the Professor. 

Annine was so scared that she nearly collapsed. 

“Gracious me!” she said, “you did give me a turn. I can’t 
tell you how frightened I was.” 

“I could see that,” said the Professor. 

“Yes, I dare say you could,” said Annine, “and if you’d seen 
what I’ve seen and heard what I’ve heard and run like I’ve run, 

why- I’ve just run over from the smithy, for I had to have 

a word with Kirsten.” 

“But Kirsten Per Smeds has been dead a long time,” said the 
Professor. 

“Yes, Kirsten’s dead,” said Annine; “she died of a Tuesday 
morning a year and a half ago come Michaelmas and I was there 
myself to lay her out and put her in her coffin and I’ve missed 
her every blessed time any little thing happened in the parish, 
for there wasn’t anybody like Kirsten over a cup of coffee. And 
yet here I go running the best part of a mile and never thinking 
till I get to the smithy that both she and Per are gone and the 
new smith’s a bachelor and over and above he isn’t at home either. 
So you can just see how it’s upset me. Oh, Lord, standing still’s 
worse than running, I think; it’s my heart that won’t stop 
jumping.” 

“Won’t you come in and sit down?” asked the Professor. 

“No, thanks, that’d take too long. I must get home to Niels 
Peter and Martine as soon as they come off the fields, but I can 

360 



The Crossways 361 

just as well tell it to you here at the gate, for you’ve always had 
a lot to do with Holger. Lord, how it makes me puff!” 

“What about Holger?” asked the Professor. 

Annine pressed her hand to her heart. “Well, wait a bit and 
let me get to where it’s got to begin. Just let me get it to stop 
thumping like this. I’ve been running too fast and I’m too much 
upset and it’s too much happening all at once; the thistles are 
still sticking in my stockings. Look here, my leg looks like a 
hedgehog but it can’t be helped—it’ll have to wait till I get to 
Martine’s and take off my stocking and they’re not all coming 
through. 

“What thistles are those you’ve been collecting?” 

“They’re out of last year’s grass, you know, up at Hill Farm. 
I’d been in town and I was crossing the field, the one on the top 
of the hill that goes down steep to the hedge by the crossroads. 
I got right up to the top and stood still a minute where you can 
see over the whole parish and right away to the town. ‘Peace 
dwells o’er town and country, The worldly turmoil’s hushed,’ 
thinks I—like in the hymn—only it ought to be evening with the 
moon up and this was the middle of the day and the cows lay 
chewing the cud. I stood there looking over all the four arms 
of the crossroads lying under me just like the sails of a windmill, 
and there comes Holger walking along the road that runs out to 
the bog where he lives and he isn’t so far from the crossroads 
already. But then I see another man coming along the road from 
Bakkebol. ‘Whoever can that be?’ thinks I, for he didn’t look 
like any of us. But then I see him give a jerk of the head and a 
swing of the arm that I’ve seen before, and then it struck me so 
I couldn’t move a foot. And then I said loud enough for myself 
to hear: ‘Well, if it’s right and if it is him, this must be the 
Lord’s own doing.’ But it won’t do, thinks I, it’s got to be 
stopped, I must get one of them away before he sees the other. 
And then I started to run headlong down the hill—you know how 
steep it is—to get there first, and half-way down I fell over a 
tether-peg that I didn’t see and went right into a big clump of 
thistles, the ones with the round blue tops. I hurt myself and 
they pricked me but I got up again, because this here—well, I’m 
going to tell you. 

“When I got down Holger had stopped just by the turning, 
with his back to it, looking away to the bog, thinking or something 
of the sort. I thought to myself: ‘How can I get through the 


362 The Philosopher’s Stone 

hedge without startling Holger and stop the miller before he gets 
to him?' But after that tumble over the peg there isn’t time for 
anything and I hear the steps coming nearer and nearer, but 
Holger doesn’t hear anything and I pray to God he may be deaf 
till the miller’s gone past so I can start talking to Holger and 
keep him there. Then I see the miller pop round the corner at 
the crossroads and I thinks to myself: ‘You’re going straight to 
your death and you don’t know it.’ And it was all as if it had been 
got up for that and nothing else. Holger hears the steps and 
wakes up and turns round and then the miller sees him and recog¬ 
nizes him and knows his last hour has come, for he was just as 
if something had struck him and he couldn’t move a foot. It made 
me think of Lot’s wife in the Bible that was turned into a pillar 
of salt in a single second. It was too late for me to do anything, 
but if I can’t stop it, thinks I, I’ll look on at it, horrible though 
it may be; for what’s going to happen now will be talked about 
many years after I’m dead but, for all that, it’ll be me that saw 
it and told the story. But Holger wasn’t standing right for me 
and I couldn’t see his face. But the miller’s went like ashes the 
moment Holger turned round and he couldn’t go and he couldn’t 
speak and he couldn’t move a muscle. He saw his death in front 
of him and knew it was a cruel death. There was something 
about his hands as if he was trying to clasp them but couldn’t. 
So I clasped mine instead. That was all I could do for him. I 
couldn’t pray, I was too excited and terrified. 

“Holger didn’t move. I can still see his back. I feel as if I 
should never dare go to sleep again for fear of dreaming of that 
back. But all at once he lifted his right hand—just like this— 
and did this with it three times one after the other—with his 
fingers like this—what he meant was that the miller was to go. 
But the miller had no power in his limbs or in his tongue and he 
stood there without a will of his own, and I wanted to say to 
Holger: ‘It wants a word to set him free, you must say a word 
to him, or else he’ll stand there till you’ve murdered him.’ But 
not a word could I get out, my tongue stuck fast. 

“Then Holger did the same again with his hand and said quite 
still, but it was funny how plain it was: 

“ ‘I am not your Maker. Go.’ 

“And then the life came back into the miller and he went, but 
to see the way he went, it made me think: ‘It’d have been better 
for him if he’d killed him,’ 


The Crossways 363 

“And then Holger turned round too and when I saw his face 
I didn’t know it. It was like what it says in the Bible about the 
last day; I don’t remember what the words are, but when I think 
of Holger’s face I see the place where it is, in Revelations. I was 
struck just like the miller and couldn’t move hand or foot, while 
Holger was walking back to the bog. But then I ran as fast as 
I could over to Kirsten, who’s been gone this long time. Ah, 
well, some of us expect our death and it doesn’t come, and some 
of us forget death when it’s already been there. What a queer 
thing life is, to be sure! 

“And if that meeting at the crossroads was really the Lord’s 
doing—and it can’t have been an accident —how is it nothing at 
all happened? And what can Holger have meant by saying that 
he hadn’t made the Vissingrod miller’s man? For we all know 
there’s only two can have had a hand in that—the man’s father 
and God Almighty. If it isn’t wrong to give God the blame for 
creating those we don’t like—excepting of course the good there is 
in them. If there is any. 

“But what did the miller’s man want to come back here for? 
He’d gone away before Hansine died. Perhaps he never heard 
anything about her in America and she may have been on his 
mind, and then perhaps he came back for her to take her with 
him to America if she wasn’t married to somebody else. We 
children of this world don’t know what’s going on in each other’s 
minds. But I’m going after the miller’s man to find out whether 
he knew anything about Hansine and Holger.—Are you coming 
too ?” 

The Professor had stepped out on to the road. 

“No,” he said; “I’m going to see Holger.” 

“Yes, do that,” said Annine; “then perhaps we’ll see one an¬ 
other later and each have something to tell.” 

The tired legs trotted on with their load of thistles. But the 
Professor went back into the garden; it had occurred to him that 
Holger must be given time. 

Towards evening he was standing out by the bog with a smile 
on his face, for, like Annine, he had come to think of the old hymn, 
“Peace dwells o’er town and country.” 

His eyes swept over the landscape; the gently undulating hills 
lay there, always two and two, like women’s rich, round breasts. 
The corn was golden in the evening sunshine and gave promise 
of early ripening. The dark-coloured grass of the bog, the black 


364 The Philosopher’s Stone 

peat with its impenetrable pools of water, added a still and serious 
depth to the country’s rich and gentle smile. 

Holger stood at the door of his cottage with his hand on his 
head and his elbow resting against the door-post. He stepped 
aside to allow his visitor to enter, but the Professor shook his 
head: “1 don’t exactly share your ideas of bachelor comfort, so 

if you don’t object we’ll stay outside.” 

Holger nodded and resumed his former attitude. The Profes¬ 
sor sat on a stone which had been left over when the cottage was 
built. Holger’s face was turned towards the bog, but whether he 
was looking far away or into the depths of his own soul, there 
was no knowing. The big face showed an immutable calm which 
seemed incapable of being disturbed. The eyes expressed not 
thought but knowledge, quiescent vision. 

Annine had been reminded of the Revelation. The Professor 
was inclined to think he was in the presence, not of Holger, but of 
an incarnation of the whole district, lost in contemplation of it¬ 
self. At last he said: 

“What was the meaning of those words you used: T am not 
your Maker’ ?” 

Holger did not turn towards the Professor; his face remained 
unchanged; and yet a new life came into it, a gleam of something 
personal which was not there before. A lake may lie calm and 
smooth, without a breath of wind to disturb it; but a light summer- 
cloud sails across the sky, and its movement can be seen in the 
lake, though it does not touch it. Holger looked like one who 
searches his memory for an event that happened long ago. 
Slowly awakening, and without yet looking at the Professor, he 
said: 

“I stood before him and saw him there. At first I thought it 
was my own thoughts and not him. But then he stood as if nailed 
to the spot and nearly died before my eyes. Then I knew it 
was him. I wanted to smash him to pieces. Make an end of 
him, that’s what I wanted. I found I did nothing. . . . 

“I don’t know whether what I’m saying now was in my head 
at the time or whether I’ve thought it since.—Yes—it was all in 
the feeling I had then. I know I had a hopeless feeling in me. 
He couldn't be got rid of. If I set fire to him and burned him 
to ashes, his ashes would still be in the world, his deed couldn’t 
be made undone. I might have been standing there hopelessly 


The Crossways 365 

still. But the fear that tied him set me free. He had no hold 
on his own thoughts. They hung outside him, so I could see 
them. And I took them. He thought I meant to have revenge; 
and I felt that I could and would have that. I believed I had 
struck him. But he still stood before me. I hadn’t moved hand 
or foot. I willed again, but my will hadn’t the power to raise 
my hand. I couldn’t understand it. He was in my power. I 
let him be. I couldn’t understand it. But I felt that I was un¬ 
derstood. I bowed my head and thought: ‘He who understands 
me can also tell me what to do.’ I looked at him again, and he was 
still nailed to the spot. But then it was no longer my own eyes 
that saw, for I saw not only him, but both of us standing there, 
not knowing where we came from, where we were going to, what 
sort we were, and why we were like that. I don’t know how 
long I stood looking at the two of us, for the sight’s there yet 
and will be as long as I live, and it seems to have been with me 
since before I was bom. 

“But when I saw again with my own eyes, then it was I said 
to him: ‘I am not your Maker. Go.’ I was going to add ‘in 
peace,’ but I couldn’t. I saw he had a long way to go before he 
reached peace. He’s wandering about at random and doesn’t know 
where it’s to be found. 

“And when he went away I felt sorry for him. And I was 
no longer hopeless, for I knew that a man can be wiped out of 
the world. Only it wasn’t him but myself I had wiped out.” 

His voice died away, as though it too had been wiped out, sucked 
up by the stillness about them. He was still standing in the same 
position with his hand on his head, his elbow resting against the 
door-post, and his eyes gazing straight before him with the con¬ 
templative vision of profound knowledge. After a while the Pro¬ 
fessor asked : “What are you thinking about ?” 

Monotonous, like the voice of a sleep-walker, as though his ego 
scarcely had a part in it, came Holger’s reply: 

“If it ever can be said, it will no doubt be said.” 

The Professor started at the impersonality of the expression. 
He had a feeling that Holger was slipping away from him. He 
stared at the immovable figure and thought he was watching a 
living human being slowly fading out of existence. The same 
vital instinct which makes one jump into the water to save a 
drowning man, even if death would perhaps be better for him, 


366 The Philosopher’s Stone 

seized the Professor. He tried to get hold of Holger’s private 
consciousness and draw it up from the depth in which he felt it was 
about to vanish like a drop in the ocean. 

He clutched at the vindictive instinct of a violent temperament 
and asked: “Don’t you regret letting him live and go in peace ?” 

A slight movement, a mild disturbance came into Holger’s eyes, 
as when a stone is thrown into a calm, deep lake. He turned to 
the Professor—as though waking with an effort—and looked at 
him as though there was a word he had not quite understood: 

“Regret-?” His eyes moved round in search of something; 

at last they rested on the Professor with the liberated smile of 
utter poverty: 

“Why, I have nothing to regret with.” 


LXIV. A Leisure Hour 

T HE little market town smiled with its warm red roofs 
as Christian Barnes landed from the boat. A friendly 
peace lay upon it, soothing the dark thoughts to which 
Dahl’s death had given rise. He had heard about it the day be¬ 
fore he left, when he called at the boarding-house. The corpse 
had been found; in the pocket were the two letters to the secretary 
of the esoteric school and on the back of the envelopes was Dahl’s 
own address. In his pocket-book was a leaf torn out of a note¬ 
book, on which was written in a copperplate hand: 

“I made of God’s garden a pleasure-ground. 

Now it is forbidden me to work in it.” 

His friend’s death had moved Barnes deeply, and on the home¬ 
ward trip he had constantly turned over in his mind the question 
of suicide or accident. Some information he had gathered from 
the only one of his fellow-boarders Dahl had shown any inclina¬ 
tion to confide in, made both solutions look equally probable. 

Here in the little harbour, which seemed designed for the Sun¬ 
day pleasure of the townspeople, calm little memories of the past 
thrust aside his serious but unavailing speculations. 

The last time he walked up this street he had thought his visit 
would be a short one; now he knew that this was to be his home. 
He turned aside to pass the grammar-school and stopped to look 
at it. This school or one like it would be the scene of his future 
work. 

He stopped again outside the sweet-shop by the school. Aha, 
the same cream buns that looked as if they were left over from 
yesterday! No, he couldn’t tackle those, unfortunately; but if 
he came across any little bright-eyed Helen Stromstad he’d soon 
invite her in. 

There stood the big cherry-tree; how often he had walked along 
here with his eye on a certain gate, hoping to catch sight of a hat , 
or a little plait of brown hair! 

367 


368 The Philosopher’s Stone 

He found himself at the gate and raised his head to look into 
the garden—and then everything happened as it does in the kind 
of dream one still believes in for a little while after waking; the 
face was there—not quite as it used to be, but the expression was 
the same, it was all as it ought to be in a dream—not altogether 
what one thought, and yet right, just as one wishes it. The gate 
was opened, and he went in. Still he didn’t understand how it 
could be so, but there stood Helen, just as she used to stand; he 
could see she expected him. She held out her hand and he took 
it, but didn’t remember to release it again. He held it fast to 
convince himself that they were both alive and awake. He yielded 
to a pressure; did not know where it came from, but was forced 
to yield. It was all the years that were past and all the years that 
were to come meeting in an instant and forcing him to an act he 
did not reflect upon but merely experienced: he put his arm around 
her neck, pressed her cheek to his, and then kissed her—as a 
schoolboy kisses a little girl who has always been kind to him. 

Helen stayed in his arms; they said nothing: all words were 
drowned in a deep peace, which held all the knowledge they 
needed of one another. 

It lasted until he began to think. Then he let her go, his arms 
sank powerless, and he felt he was awake. 

“I—beg your pardon,” he said awkwardly, confused and guilty. 

He could see by her expression that she did not understand him, 
and she could see by his that something was not right. Their con¬ 
fusion spread from one to the other and increased in both. 

“Why?” she asked, turning red. 

He looked at the ground and could not meet her eyes, because 
she too had forgotten herself. 

“You are married,” he managed to say at last; but his voice was 
so thick that the words could scarcely be understood. 

And she did not understand them; she stared at him and ex¬ 
claimed in surprise: “I— married?” 

His eyes were quickly raised to hers, with something of the 
same look of surprise. 

“Why, I thought— aren't you-?” 

She shook her head. 

“Well, but-?” 

A thought occurred to her. “Oh, yes—I forgot. I was then. 
A little while—but that’s long ago—I-” 

She was not allowed to say more; he seized her and kissed her 


A Leisure Hour 369 

—not like a schoolboy, but like one of “the boys/’ a boy from 
Montana, who knew what he had in his arms. 

When she came to herself she asked, wondering: 

“Didn’t you really know I was divorced? I got it before you 
went away.” 

He thought for a moment, for he wondered at it himself. At 
last he saw light. “I used to be an inquisitive fellow and fond of 
asking questions, but I could never bring myself to ask anyone 
about you. My God, how fond I must have been of you, Helen!” 

Her eyes grew moist and he pressed her hand between his. As 
they had now begun to wonder about everything, Helen asked: 

‘Yes, but if you thought I—I wasn’t free, how was it you— 
you came through the gate as if it was the most natural thing-?” 

“I wasn’t awake,” he said; “I’d just come from school and 
thought I had an hour off.” 

Helen bowed her head. “You too,” she said, and the tears ran 
down her cheeks. 

Barnes was alarmed; she felt it and said, before he had time to 
ask: “Dear me—and I’ve been living on that hour off all these 
years.” 

“You too!” said Barnes, and as Helen looked up in surprise, 
he went on: “Do you know ?—that was the only thing I took with 
me from home, when I went to America.” 

They sat on the seat and told each other all there was to tell 
about that hour off—as they thought at the time; afterwards they 
had a better idea of the inexhaustibility of the subject. 

“So we have always belonged to each other,” said Helen hap¬ 
pily and with a touch of solemnity. Barnes laughed. 

“What are you laughing at?” she asked. “You know it’s true.” 

“Yes,” he said, “but it reminds me of a Sunday afternoon I 
once wasted at home in searching everywhere for a knife which 
was in my pocket.” 

“Yes, but when you found your knife you didn’t like it any the 
less because you’d had it the whole time ?” 

“Oh, no,” he admitted, adding more seriously: “Perhaps more, 
because I knew what it meant to lose it. I can tell you, I took 
care of it. That was a lovely Sunday afternoon.—What day is 
it to-day?” 

“It’s Thursday,” said Helen. 

“Yes, of course it’s Thursday,” said Barnes; “it always used to 
be Thursday—but what day is it this year?” 


370 The Philosopher’s Stone 

Helen laughed. “It’s really Thursday to-day— and this year.” 

Barnes looked at her half sceptically. “And to think that I 
was always looking for a miracle!” he said. 

Helen followed the changes in his face from happy wonder to 
serious reflection. “What are you thinking about?” she asked. 

He looked up at her with eyes in which lingering inquiry lost 
itself in immediate joy over her. 

“It’s no use brooding over what’s past and done with,” he said, 
“but I was thinking that if on that Sunday I had chanced to put 
my hand in my pocket, I should have found my knife without all 
that hunting. You say we have always belonged to each other, 
and that is gloriously, paradoxically true, as the facts of love ought 
to be. All the same, I have a feeling that at that time I shouldn’t 
have been able to get you as easily as putting my hand in my pocket. 
But to-day, when I never so much as thought of it, I only had 
to walk through the gate for you to drop into my hands like a 
ripe apple.” 

Helen turned a trifle red. “That’s perfectly true,” she said; 
“it was I who proposed.” 

“Proposed!” exclaimed Barnes. “God bless my soul, we’ve for¬ 
gotten all about proposing!” 

“No,” she said; “I saw you standing under the cherry-tree, 
looking as if you were talking to it. Then I wished, till I lost 
myself in the wish and knew nothing more, that you would come 
here and say—what you haven’t said-” 

“I love you,” he said.—“But you,” he went on after a moment, 
“—you must have-” 

“I have always loved you,” said Helen. “Of course. What 
else should I do?” 

“Well, but-” 

“Yes, we were little then,” she said; “and when we grew big 
we never used to speak to each other.” 

“No, I couldn’t,” he said. 

“Of course I was fond of you,” she thought aloud; “but actu¬ 
ally in love with you I was not—then.” 

“I believe that,” said Barnes; “I was not one that girls fell in 
love with.” 

“I saw you the day you came home,” she said, “and could think 
of nothing but whether it was really you. I wasn’t sure—oh, well, 
I was inwardly, but not—outwardly! So I asked and found out 
that you had come home—and then I knew what it was to be in 



A Leisure Hour 371 

love. I saw you again when you left for Copenhagen. That’s a 
long time ago.” 

“Yes, a week,” he said. 

“It is a long time to wait,” she said, “when one doesn’t even 
know whether it’s any use waiting.” 

“You might have known you had me in your pocket,” he said. 

While conversing thus, they wandered about the garden, with 
frequent halts when Barnes found it necessary to make sure in 
tangible fashion that he “really had his knife.” But at last it 
occurred to him that he was bound for the parsonage. 

“The poor old parson!” he exclaimed. “He’s waiting at home 
and wondering what’s happened to the prodigal son. I’ve kept 
him over two hours. Couldn’t you come home with me and tell 
him what has delayed me on the way ?” 

Pastor Barnes stood outside the parsonage with his eyes on the 
road, which was still as long and empty as ever. 

At last a couple of figures appeared at the top of the hill. 

“That’s Christian,” said Pastor Barnes with relief; “but who 
can the girl be with him?” 


LXV. Free 


O N Sunday afternoon the Professor returned from the par¬ 
sonage to find Holger Enke sitting on his door-step. He 
had been sitting there long enough to be lost in himself; 
he did not move and neither heard nor saw. 

The Professor looked at his calm figure and thought, as he went 
up the path: “He’s just as motionless as the house behind him; 
he might be a big stone—or an animal, since he has breath.” 

As Holger turned his face towards him and rose, the Professor 
forgot to give him any greeting, for the idea struck him: “Hang 
me if he mightn’t be a god! The only thing he’s not the least 
like is—a man.” 

The little smile that appeared on Holger’s lips put the thought 
to shame and made the Professor start, almost agape with amaze¬ 
ment. For he found himself the object of the little affectionate 
smile with which from his earliest years Holger had regarded 
everything that was small, delicate and weak, and in need of 
protection. 

The Professor had had a few experiences in his chequered life, 
but this was a new one. For the first time—as far as he remem¬ 
bered—he had lost his confidence and his bearings: he was not 
used to being regarded as “a good little thing.” He felt himself 
the object of an odd tutorial affection, which, without intending it, 
put him in his place; and that place was hardly so roomy as the 
one he usually disposed of. His quack’s practice, of which he was 
a little proud, sank into insignificance, and drew himself with it. 
And the cause of this humiliation was the most shining result of 
that very quackery, the man who stood here regarding him with 
parental tenderness, and whose smile was that of a father, a 
mother and a friend. . . . 

When they had had supper the Professor lighted a cigar and 
offered Holger one, but Holger said no, thanks, he didn’t smoke. 
“On principle?” asked the Professor. 

“No, I haven’t any—what you call principles,” said Holger; 
“but—but I don’t know why I should smoke.” 

372 


Free 373 

The Professor leaned back comfortably in his chair and watched 
the smoke as it poured out of his mouth. No explanation was re¬ 
quired why he should smoke. 

“You came out to me the other day to ask something about the 
Vissingrod miller’s man,” said Holger, “and I told you what I 
could at the time. But then you asked me what I was thinking of, 
and I couldn’t answer at once, because I was really not thinking 
but living in what had gone before and what came after. Which 
was, after all, the same thing. And now I’ve been thinking that 
you’re always interested”—he smiled as if he were offering a 
child a fascinating toy—“in what’s going on in other people. And 
you’ve been good to me in a way nobody else could have been, 
so if you’re interested it’s only fair you should hear what hap¬ 
pened before that meeting at the crossways.” 

“Why, had you seen him before?” asked the Professor. 

“No. But I had seen something else, and afterwards I under¬ 
stood that it was because of that I let him go in peace. The 
wiping-out of a man which had to be done—for he and I couldn’t 
meet and go on living in the same world—that had been done al¬ 
ready without my knowing it. That meeting at the crossways was 
only a confirmation of it.” 

“Then what had happened?” asked the Professor. 

“Ah—what had happened ?” repeated Holger. “What had hap¬ 
pened that I have power to tell? Nothing. Everything. A 
vision. A dream. A greater reality than what we generally 
see.” 

He looked across at the Professor, as though he would try to 
adapt his words to his intelligence. 

“Yes, it must have been a dream,” he said; “let us call it a 
dream. But in that case the first thing I dreamt was that I was 
awake. I dreamt I was sitting up in bed awake and was just go¬ 
ing to open my eyes and receive my sight. For it was as though 
I had been blind up till then, but now my eyes were to be opened. 
I opened them and looked into heaven. 

“And there people were living in the company of those they 
loved; and there was no misunderstanding and no possibility of 
strife, and there could be no parting. And their life was this: 
every moment they were coming nearer to each other and under¬ 
standing better how they could love one another. And my heart 
grew warm and I said: This is the land of happiness!’ And I 
was sad, for I have never tried human happiness. But I looked 


374 The Philosopher’s Stone 

to see where my happiness lay, and asked: ‘Where is God ?’ 
For he was not in this land of happiness. Except—if you can 
say so—as the gratitude in their hearts for their happiness. . . . 

“Then it was as though I was still blind and my eyes were to 
be opened; and after that I saw the heaven where are those who 
worship God. A mighty grace poured down upon them, as much 
as they had room for in their hearts. Angels surrounded them 
and taught them a deeper worship, so that they might have room 
for yet more grace. I thought: ‘This is bliss. But where is 
God ?’ For he was not in the heaven of the blissful. In it there 
could be no other than themselves, for they prayed to God for 
their own sakes, that they might be filled with his grace. 

“And again it was as though I was blind, and my eyes were 
to be opened before I could see. Then I saw into the heaven 
where are those who search into life to find out whence it comes, 
what it is, and whither it goes. There sat men who knew all the 
things I shall never know and feel no desire to know. In front 
of each one was a globe, which was alive and in movement, with 
life coming into being and growing before their eyes, and they 
followed it so closely that they knew of nothing but themselves 
and what they saw. It was so still in this heaven that those who 
had power to understand must have been able to hear their 
thoughts. In front of each of these globes was a little golden sun 
—a mirror, so to speak—but of living gold, which did not reflect 
him who looked into it, but showed a fathomless golden depth. 
I saw a face glide across one of these golden suns; and he who 
sat before it rose up, and I knew that his wife’s life upon earth 
had come to an end. I saw him wait, I saw her come, I saw 
him take her by the hand and lead her into the heaven where his 
heart was. I knew that that heaven was not hers, but that it was 
to be hers, since it was his; and I thought: ‘Such is love.’ But 
I asked again: ‘Where is God?’ For God was not in the heaven 
where they learned to understand everything—except him. 

“Then again it was as though I had been blind and my eyes were 
opened, so that I could see. I saw the heaven where are those 
who worship God for his own sake. But I cannot tell what I 
saw, for while I was looking it was continually swelling and grow¬ 
ing: the radiance had new rays, as though it had been dull before; 
immensity grew vaster, as though it had been small before; felicity 
became abundant, as though it had been poor. It was splendour. 
It was glory. Everything that on earth is radiant to our eyes has 


F ree 375 

its light from there, the morning sun its brightness, the evening 
sun its glory, life itself its life. Without it all eyes would be 
dull, gold would be yellow, but not golden. 

“Yes—that is just how it is. . . 

He ceased speaking and gazed before him. His eyes had 
shone as though they still saw what he was speaking of. Now 
their expression changed; instead of rapture came a profound 
calm, greater than the calm of death; it was that of life and 
death together, as though the irreconcilable powers had merged 
together into a third, which was mightier than both. 

The Professor felt a cold thrill which had in it something of 
fear and of reverence; Holger began to speak again: 

“There was a manifold variety, a superfluity of diverse forms. 
But there was one thing in common; all existed in a great exalta¬ 
tion, breathed in a deliverance which had no bounds. But the 
strange thing was that this eternal exaltation became like a yoke 
to me, although it could never tire me; and I felt the deliverance, 
which eternally grew greater, as a burden. I gazed into the 
glory, but found no others who felt it thus; and as I gazed I 
heard a voice—but not outside me—saying: ‘What are you look¬ 
ing for in God’s glory?’ I answered—but I used no words: 
T am looking for God.’ The voice said: ‘This is God’s glory.’ 
I asked again: ‘Where is God himself?’ The voice answered: 
‘You who dare to question here, open your eyes and see!’ 

“And instantly I was shut out from the glory. It lay behind 
me, so to speak. Before me was something—I suppose I must 
call it—a room. There was no joy in it; though I could see 
nothing, I thought: ‘Everything that is the opposite of joy is in 
there.’ But behind this—room I saw another. There is nothing 
I can call it. Every name would be too big. I might call it a 
desert; I might say a closet; both names are too big, because 
they mean something. Here was nothing you could lay your hand 
on and give a name to and call your own. But a longing drew 
me towards it, and although I heard no voice and saw nothing 
to guide me, I knew I would go there. For in there was God. 

“But as I was about to go through the joyless room which lay 
before God’s poverty, I checked myself and was seized with 
terror. This terror poured over me like rain and penetrated me 
like a consuming poison, dissolving and destroying everything 
that was I. I dared not go right in, I dared not cease to be 
myself , go on living and not be myself. 


376 The Philosopher’s Stone 

“But then I saw again the room that was so small that there 
could be nothing in it except God, and longing drew me on, and 
I thought as I went: ‘In ceasing to be, you come nearer to God 
than if you stay here and remain yourself/ I went in and died 
a death which was as like the death of our body as a nightmare 
is like quiet sleep/ , 

His eyelids dropped, his face closed. He sat as motionless as 
when he was on the door-step. 

Something fell on the floor with a short, dull sound. It was the 
Professor’s cigar, which had gone out and now fell from his 
fingers. He did not pick it up, but gazed at Holger, who was 
sitting so near him, and seemed so far away that communication 
was not to be imagined. He found his lips moving to form an 
anxious question: “What then? what then?”—but when he be¬ 
came fully conscious of it he was unable to utter the words. It 
was as though the terror Holger had felt before God’s poverty 
stood in the way of this last question. A deep calm, resembling 
neither life nor death, rested upon Holger’s frame and diffused 
itself from it; the Professor felt an instinctive desire to escape; 
in the face of this calm the man who usually lived on stillness 
and silence felt something like a fear that his consciousness might 
go under and never come up again. He was caught in a vortex 
of infinity which would drag him with it if he did not do some¬ 
thing. He would have to make Holger go on talking, hear his 
living voice, feel his thoughts stirring; and he asked: 

“Then according to your dream, God is—nothing?” 

“You may say so,” said Holger. 

“Then there is no God.” 

“Yes, there is.” 

“He must either be or not be.” 

“No.” 

“There is no third alternative.” He turned abruptly to Holger 
and his tone showed slight irritation. 

Holger hesitated a moment. “Shall I tell you what I think?” 
he asked. 

“Yes.” 

“Very well. Then you must remember Hansine. Who was it 
that loved and killed?” 

“It was you.” 

“Now think of the Vissingrod miller’s man. Who was it that 
hated and forgave?” 


377 


Free 

“I say with admiration that it was you again.” 

“And who is it that’s sitting here with you?” 

“Since you ask me—it’s you.” 

But now if I tell you that I don’t feel the hairs of my head 
as mine, but only that they’re there; and don’t feel that my eyes 
see, but only that there is a seeing; or that my ears hear, only 
that there is a hearing; and that I don’t feel my breath as mine, 
only that it’s drawn; or that my feet walk and my hands do their 
work, only that these things happen: then who am I, who did these 
conflicting things—who loved and killed, who hated and forgave, 
who neither love nor hate any more? Who am neither attracted 
nor repelled, who know nothing of will or aim?” 

“Do you mean by that that you don’t exist?” 

“You may say so.” 

“But you’re here.” 

“Then there must be a ‘third alternative.’ ” 

“You remember what you have done, therefore you, sitting 
here, are the one who did it.” 

“It wasn’t I who did it.” 

“Not you?” 

“Hans Olsen once said to me: ‘You were not yourself when 
you did that to Hansine.’ But I was no more ‘myself’ when I did 
good to anybody. I was always at the mercy of one of the powers 
and knew very little about myself. Why, it even happened that 
I could hate from love, that I could strike from affection. The 
powers of life acted as they pleased with me.” 

“The ‘powers’ of life acted—then what were you?” 

“I was the conflict between them. In that I learned to know 
myself and felt what would be able to deliver me from this 
conflict.” 

“And what was that ?” 

“That was God.” 

“And now?” 

“I know of nothing but the deliverance.” 

“But that which you call God, which drove you through con¬ 
flict to deliverance, that must have been an instinct in yourself ?” 

“Then it would have stopped when I left off being ‘myself.’ 
—But I’m thinking about my dream, which perhaps was true and 
no dream. Perhaps there is a region of heaven or a pit of hell 
corresponding to every feeling, and they really exist, though we 
can’t see them. And a feeling exists, though we can’t see it. If 


378 The Philosopher’s Stone 

I had a good feeling for little children, it was not I , but it was 
mine and a proof that I existed, and there was peace around the 
little ones because I had it. Perhaps the heavens are God’s feel¬ 
ings towards the world. Because they are there and we are aware 
of them, we know that he exists. But God himself cares very 
little about his heavens.” 

“What makes you think that?” 

Holger looked charily at the Professor and said: 

“Don’t be alarmed at what I’m going to say.—I don’t wish my 
evil deed undone. It is just as near and just as dear to me—it 
is just as far from me and indifferent as the sheaves I used to 
bind in the fields for Hansine, or as a child that was being bullied 
in the playground. I helped the little ones from love; from love 
of them I beat the big ones cruelly. I loved and killed. Where 
there is love of that kind, there is also hate. So long as a heaven 
exists, there is also a hell. I do not wish my evil deed undone. 
Without it I should never have become free, never reached the 
point where I regarded my best act as no better than it.” 

The Professor looked at him incredulously. “No better?” 

“No. And I believe that is how God looks upon his heaven 
and his hell and says: ‘Neither this nor that is I.’ But they 
are both signs that he exists.” 

“According to that,” said the Professor, “life would be a con¬ 
flict between opposite powers, from which consciousness arises, 
and God a being who has bound himself to the world and frees 
himself from it—together with us men.” 

Holger shook his head. “What you’re saying now is thoughts 
you have about him. But every thought we form about him, 
moves us an inch away from him. He is not to be thought but 
lived. We are nearer to him when we scarcely believe he exists, 
but feel him within us. Yes, in us —for his place is a poor one. 
So poor that it may be found everywhere and is every man’s 
property. Yes, truly, God’s hidden dwelling lies by the highway, 
so openly that nobody notices it. But of him nothing can be said, 
except that he is. What can be said is this: There is a God for 
everyone who needs him. With every mile I went along my 
life’s road—when there was a life I called mine—I prayed to God 
in fear and trembling, in trust and cheerfulness. At every step 
he was in my thoughts, at every step different and ever greater. 
But all the time there was something that was always the same. 
That which was the same the whole way was the truth about him. 


Free 379 

I no longer think of him, I know myself in him. I no 
longer pray, but I feel as if I was always praying. This must be 
a song of thanksgiving that my life is ended and that I am free; 
it must be-” 

“It must be the little ‘closet/ ” said the Professor. 

Holger looked at him, bent his head, and said quietly: 

“Yes, it must be the little room at last/' 

He looked out into the dusk, where day and night were lost 
in each other. 

“So there can’t be any more,” said he. 

“No,” said the Professor. “There is no more.” 

And to himself he added: 

“ ‘And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took 
him/ ” 



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